Dutch/Russian L1 Transfer in case of English idiomatic expressions
V. Kushchanova, MA General Linguistics student, University of AmsterdamSupervisor: Prof. Dr. J.C. Schaeffer, University of Amsterdam Second reader: Dr. J. Verhagen, University of Amsterdam
Key words L2; L1; L1 Transfer; Idiom production; English L2; Russian L1; Dutch L1 Abbreviat ions PV: Phrasal verbs L1: First language L2: Second language Abstract
Objectives and predictions
This study compares the English idiom production scores of adult Dutch and Russian L1 learners of English as their L2 in order to formulate recommendations for teaching idioms in the L2
classroom. It is hypothesized that,
because of the closer cultural and linguistic resemblance between Dutch and English,
there is more positive L1 transfer in the case of Dutch. This renders the prediction that same proficiency Dutch speakers of English are better at English idioms than Russian speakers. Since there are different types of L1-L2 idiom-pairs, namely, ‘analogues’, ‘equivalents’ and ‘non-equivalents’, it is hypothesized that equivalents are produced the best (a positive linguistic and cultural L1 transfer), because concepts and linguistic representations coincide in L1 and L2. Analogues, because of their only partial equivalence between L1 and L2, are more prone to a linguistic negative L1 transfer than equivalents or non-equivalents, predicting more errors in analogues than in equivalents or non-equivalents across Dutch and Russian learners of English. Moreover, the participants are predicted to receive the lowest scores for the translation of non-equivalents (a linguistic and cultural negative L1 transfer). More generally, we predict that more advanced learners of English (whether their L1 is Dutch or Russian) are better at idioms than less advanced ones and that the number of English books read a year and hours a week spent socializing in English correlate with the idiom production scores.
Method
Fifteen Dutch and fifteen Russian speakers of English, between the ages of 16 and 65 participated in an oral translation task (Dutch to English or Russian to English). The translation task contains 26 English idioms and their counterparts in Dutch or Russian, divided over several experimental conditions based on whether Dutch-English or Russian-English idiom pairs are analogues, equivalents or non-equivalents. The task contains 10 fillers and 5 practice items.
Results & Discussion
Our results show that overall, the Dutch participants score significantly higher than same-proficiency Russian participants (|t|=2.571), confirming our first prediction. Furthermore, participants perform significantly better on equivalents than on analogues and non-equivalents (|t| =5.976), confirming our prediction about a positive L1 transfer in case of equivalents. Even though it is obvious from the scores received that the performance on equivalents is the best, it is the worst on non-equivalents, and it is somewhere in-between on analogues, the scores on analogues are not significantly different from those on non-equivalents and qualitative analysis shows that mistakes were made in all kinds of idiom types, thus, this prediction is not confirmed. The results also demonstrate that more proficient participants perform significantly better (|t|= 2.620) than less proficient learners of English, supporting the prediction about proficiency. Finally, the number of hours a week spent socializing in English has a significant positive effect on the idiom production scores (|t|=2.044), confirming the prediction about L2 use. While reading has appeared not to significantly contribute to better idiom production scores.
Conclusion
Applying these results to the classroom, we conclude the following. Figurative language, L2 idioms in particular, cannot be taught similarly to speakers of different L1s, because L1 speakers whose L1 is linguistically and culturally similar to the L2 have an advantage. Moreover, frequent exposure to the L2 is very important for idiomatic language to be acquired. Thus, teachers should make sure students get a lot of practice when learning L2 idioms. In addition, the higher the L2 proficiency is, the better L2 idioms’ production is. Thus, the L2 idioms’ teaching strategy should take this into consideration by starting to teach idioms to more proficient L2 students. Finally, equivalents should be taught first, because they are acquired most easily.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
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3
2. Background
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4
2.1 Idioms
...
4
2.2 How are idioms acquired and processed in L1?
...
6
2.2.1 When do children acquire idioms in L1?
...
6
2.2.2 Idioms have their own lexical entries
...
7
2.3 How are idioms learned in adult L2? Linguistic and cultural transfer .
9
2.3.1 Cultural L1 transfer in case of idioms
...
1
0
2.3.2 Linguistic L1 tranfer in case of idioms
...
1
2
2.3.3 Other factors
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1
3
2.3.4 Idiom production in L2
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1
4
3 . Hypotheses and predictions
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1
6
4 . Method
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1
7
4 .1 Participants
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1
7
4 . 2 Procedure
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1
8
4 . 3 Material
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1
8
4 . 3.1 Idiomatic expressions
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1
8
4 . 3.2 Memory test
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2
4
4 . 3.3 Proficiency test
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2
5
4 . 4 Data analysis
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2
5
4 . 4.1 Scoring
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2
5
4 . 4.2 Statistical analysis
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2
6
5.
Results and
Discussion
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26
5.1 Limitations of the current study
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3
6
5.2 Future research
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3
7
References
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3
8
Appendix
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41
1. Introduction
This study examines potential L1 transfer in the L2 production of idiomatic expressions. Idioms exist in every language. Traditionally, an idiom is defined as a “fixed linguistic expression whose overall figurative meaning cannot be predicted from the meanings of the constituent parts” (Kovesces and Szabo 1996, p. 326). The ability to use correct idiomatic expressions in spontaneous speech is considered to be one of the indicators of a high language proficiency.
In terms of processing, idioms are often argued to be represented as ‘chunks in the lexicon’: each idiom has its own idiomatic lexical concept node, its own lexical entry in the mental lexicon, that is different from the lexical concepts of its constituents (Sprenger et al 2006). Idioms are acquired relatively easily by native speakers in childhood and adolescence, while adult L2 learners often encounter problems in the acquisition of idiomatic expressions. They have to acquire both the syntactic/linguistic representations, that may be different from their L1 structures, and the concepts underlying the idioms, that can be culture-specific, and therefore differ from the concepts underlying their L1.
Idiomatic expressions in one language may not have direct equivalents in the other language, because they are based on a culture-specific concept or metaphor that does not exist in the other language. If idioms do not have a direct equivalent, they may have either an analogue (idiom with the same meaning but different syntactic structure or phrases/words) in the other language, or no idiomatic counterpart at all - non-equivalent (due to lack of relevant concept or metaphor in other language). Yet, in other cases, idiomatic expressions in the L1 do have equivalents in the L2, meaning that both the linguistic structures (including words) and the underlying concepts in the L1 and L2 resemble each other.
The question is if and how the culture and the linguistic structure of the L1 influence the acquisition and use of idiomatic expressions in the L2. L1 transfer to L2 has been established in different components of language, such as syntactic structures (Hulk and van der Linde 1996), lexicon (Kharitonova 2013), pragmatic strategies (Wijayanto 2014), syntax-pragmatics (Sorace 2011), phonology and orthography (Sun-Alperin and Wang 2009). Does L1 transfer also take place in the L2 production of idioms? If so, is this L1 transfer mainly linguistic or cultural in nature, or both? The answers to these questions contribute to second language teaching strategies.
The current study investigates how adult Dutch and Russian L1 speakers produce English idiomatic expressions. Its results will provide insight into the question if and how the Dutch and Russian languages (linguistic transfer) and cultures (transfer of concepts) play a role in the production/acquisition of English idiomatic expressions. In turn, these insights could modify current approaches of teaching English idioms to speakers of different first languages. In addition, this study aims to clarify why some English idiomatic expressions are harder to learn than others for the speakers of a particular first language. Moreover, the study will help to answer the question whether reading and use of English outside the classroom play a role in the acquisition of English idioms by Dutch and Russian native speakers.
The rest of the thesis is organized as follows. First, I describe some theoretical background and previous studies on idiomatic expressions: definitions, terminology, idiom processing in production and comprehension, connection to language, culture and mentality and other factors that potentially influence idiom acquisition in L2. Second, I introduce a theoretical framework regarding L1 transfer in L2 production, present relevant previous studies, and point out questions that these studies leave open, followed by hypotheses and predictions for Dutch and Russian L2 learners of English idioms. Third, I describe the method testing these predictions. Finally, the results are presented and discussed in light of the hypotheses and predictions, followed by a conclusion, including limitations of the current study and suggestions for the future research.
2. Background
2.1 Idioms
There are many different definitions of an idiom. Some say it is “an ambiguous term, used in conflicting ways” (Moon 1998, p.3). Others claim that an idiom is a “fixed and semantically opaque or metaphorical” expression (Moon 1998, p.4). The Concise Oxford English Dictionary gives the following definition: “an idiom is a group of words established by usage as having a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words. A form of expression natural to a language, person, or group.” Many scientists consider phrasal verbs (e.g. turn down) as idioms too, because “many of them are fixed in structure and non-literal or semi-literal in meaning” (Liu 2003, p. 678). The current study adopts the definition of an idiom as a “fixed linguistic expression whose overall figurative meaning cannot be predicted from the meanings of the constituent parts” (Kovesces and Szabo 1996).1
1 Despite our adopted definition of an idiom, there is a debate as to how decomposable (if the literal meanings of the constituent words contribute to the general meaning of an idiom) and how transparent (if they could be explained by a conceptual metaphor,
According to Dimitrieva (2005) and Komissarov (2001), translation studies employ four methods of idiom translation. As such, interpreters can try to find equivalents, analogues, word-for-word translated idioms, and descriptive translations of idioms. Equivalents are idioms that are linguistically and conceptually similar in the two languages. They represent the same concept and are expressed with similar words and syntactic structure in both languages. Examples of equivalents can be found in (1).
(1) a. to play with fire
b.met vuur spelen
(with fire play ‘to play with fire)
c. Играть с огнём
(play with fire ’to play with fire’)
In contrast, ‘analogues’ are idioms in two languages that convey the same meaning/concept but in different words and/or syntax, as illustrated in (2):
(2) a.A piece of cake
b. Appeltje eitje
(apple egg ‘easy peasy’)
c. проще пареной репы
(easier than steamed turnip;‘it is easier than steamed turnip’)
Finally, word-for-word or descriptive translations of idioms are used when there is no idiomatic counterpart of the idiom in the other language due to the lack of a certain concept or metaphor in the relevant culture. We refer to these as ‘non-equivalents’, illustrated in (3):
(3) a. the ball is in your court b. Очередь за вами
(line after you; ‘It is your turn’(not idiomatic in Russian))
These definitions of equivalent, analogue and non-equivalent are schematized in Table1. conventional knowledge or metonymy) idiomatic expressions are (Cieslicka 2015). However, this is not the focus of my study.
Table 1: Definition schema of different types of idiom translations Linguistic representation Cultural concept/metaphor Equivalent + + Analogue - + Non-equivalent -
-+ : same in both languages - : different in both languages
2.2 How are idioms acquired and processed in L1?
2.2.1 When do children acquire idioms in their L1?
Figurative competence usually is developed (is adult-like) by the age of 10-11 years old (Carrol et al. 2018). It is based on the ability to conduct a semantic analysis and to infer from the context, which helps the speaker to process a broader range of possible meanings (Cain et al. 2009). Semantic analysis and context do indeed contribute to the establishment of the figurative competence and the process of idioms’ comprehension and acquisition in L1, especially at an age when the figurative language has just started its development. As soon as this process has been automatized, idiomatic expressions are represented with the help of the common figurative idiom nodes in the conceptual system and have their own lexical entries, which are accessed immediately after the idiom is heard.
2.2.2 Idioms have their own lexical entries
The difference between the literal language and idiom production is in the source of the activation. During the bottom-up processing there are two kinds of connections between lemma and concept level in case of idiomatic expressions: one which denotes “has the meaning of” and the other one is “the element of”. Both are necessary to explain the
processing of idioms, that are chunks in the lexicon, during comprehension (Sprenger et al. 2006). Table 2 shows how processing of constituents of an idiom happens during comprehension.
Table 2. Comprehension of idioms in L1 Hit(lemma)
During production the literal words are activated by their own literal lexical concepts while fixed expressions altogether (simultaneously) are activated by a common figurative concept node (see Table 3) (Sprenger et al. 2006).
Table 3. Top-down processing hit (concept)
hit (lemma)
hit-the-road (concept)
hit(lemma), the(lemma), road(lemma)
Sprenger et al. (2006) conducted 3 experiments to investigate how idioms are stored and produced. They tested Cutting and Bock’s hybrid model of idiom representation (1997) which assumes that idioms represent a single concept node but are composed of individual lemmas (words), the literal meanings of which are activated concurrently with the figurative meaning of the idiom as a whole. Cued-recall and priming technique were used in the first experiment on 16 native speakers of Dutch. The results of this study demonstrated that the effect of priming was stronger in the case of idioms, which confirmed the hypothesis that the components of an idiom have one common entry in the mental lexicon. From one primed element of an idiom the activation goes on to all the other elements via a common idiom
Hit the road (concept) The eleme ntof Has the meani ng of Is expressed by Is partly expres sed by
representation. In other words, after the idiomatic lexical concept node the activation goes on to the lemmas that together constitute the idiom and to the syntactic information that has already been predetermined in the form of phrasal frames.
The second experiment was conducted on 71 native Dutch speakers with the help of the cloze task. The results showed that the same lexical entry can be chosen because of its semantics or because of its fixed link to the representation of an idiomatic expression because there was an effect of the semantically related distractor. Thus, the constituents’ lexical entries are activated during the production of idiomatic expressions. 72 Dutch native speakers took part in the third experiment where a semantic effect was found again as evidence of activated literal meanings of the constituent words.
To explain how syntactic features of every constituent word of an idiom are identified in the production process, Sprenger, Levelt, Kempen (2006) introduced a superlemma as a separate representation of the idiom on the lexical-syntactic processing level. This representation carries syntactic properties of the idiom that are connected to the simple lemmas. A superlemma defines the syntactic relationships between the individual lemmas, and sometimes changes their primary syntactic predisposition. Syntactic frames supply a phrase structure with open slots that can be filled with the simple lemmas that are activated by the idiom’s lexical concept in parallel. In the case, John hit the road, a phrasal VP frame (verbal phrase frame) with open slots for a verb and a direct object is activated. Upon the superlemma’s selection, the syntactic constraints it carries become available to the production system. They specify or modify the syntactic properties of the simple constituent lemmas (Sprenger et al. 2006).
Cutting and Bock’s hybrid model of idiom representation and superlemma of the lexical-syntactic processing level (Sprenger et al. 2006) provide a great insight into how idioms are processed during production and comprehension in L1 and might help us to explain why some mistakes are made by highly-proficient L2 speakers during the production of L2 idioms.
2.3 How are idioms learned in adult L2? Linguistic and cultural transfer
Naturally, idioms, as one of the representatives of figurative language, have attracted attention of many researchers throughout the years especially in the sphere of second language acquisition. Highly proficient speakers of L2 are thought to know and be able to use idiomatic expressions of L2 appropriately. Moreover, normally L2 idioms are usually taughtat advanced levels only (Laufer 2000). The results of the study conducted by Laufer, which investigated avoidance of English idioms by 56 Hebrew university students, showed that idiom use was related to the language level of the subjects. But Laufer argued that these results might, of course, mean that some idioms are less difficult for some subjects because they are taught at the lower levels of L2 too. Adult L2 learners have already acquired idioms of their L1 and when studying L2 have to expand their lexicon with entries for idiomatic expressions. And there are several factors that influence idioms’ acquisition in L2, one of which is L1 transfer.
It is a well-known fact that L1 and L2 are in contact and may influence each other. The term “transfer” has been used mainly in the literature on the second language acquisition (Kharitonova 2013). Transfer can be positive and negative. The positive transfer is when L1 and L2 coincide in form, pattern and meaning, the learner sort of uses his/her L1 when producing L2. The result of this influence is a correct L2 language use. The negative transfer is when L1 and L2 are different in form, pattern or meaning and the learner uses equivalent form, pattern or meaning from his/her L1 when speaking in L2. The result of such interaction between L1 and L2 is incorrect L2 or interference errors (Irujo 1986).
The positive L1 transfer facilitates learning. For instance, 14 adult L1 Spanish and 13 Chinese speakers of L2 English were tested on the lexical availability and spelling accuracy task to investigate whether language typology of L1 and L2 influenced it. The results show that Spanish speakers have larger available lexicon as well as they made fewer spelling mistakes in L2 English than Chinese speakers because English and Spanish are typologically closer with respect to the alphabetic system (MARTÍNEZ-ADRIÁN and GALLARDO-DEL-PUERTO 2017).
The example of a negative L1 transfer is in the study of the production of Vietnamese monophthong vowels in an imitation and a read aloud tasks by 11 L2 adult Korean learners, done by Dao and Nguyen 2018. Adult Korean learners transfer their L1 vowel quality features into the production of Vietnamese vowels, namely, Vietnamese vowels /ɛ/ and /e/ produced by Korean learners merged in vowel space, proving how a phonemic merger in L1 can affect speakers’ perception and production of non-native vowels. Moreover, the three Vietnamese vowels /ɔ/, /o/ and/ ɤ/ produced by Korean learners in both tasks tend to cluster together (Dao and Nguyen 2018).
Positive as well as negative transfer has been found in many different aspects of language: syntactic structures (Hulk and van der Linde 1996), lexicon (Kharitonova 2013),
pragmatic strategies (Wijayanto 2014), syntax-pragmatics (Sorace 2011), phonology and orthography (Sun-Alperin and Wang 2009). It proves that L1 can exert influence not only on one part of L2 but that there are many ways in which L1 can affect L2.
The question is whether L1 transfer also takes place in the L2 production of idiomatic expressions, and if so, how? Furthermore, what is the role of the linguistic and cultural resemblance between the L1 and the L2 in this process? These are the questions the current study addresses.
2.3.1 Cultural L1 transfer in case of idioms
Cultural similarity or difference between L1 and L2 are sometimes the source of a positive or negative L1 transfer. Conventional knowledge (shared information that people in a particular culture have concerning a conceptual domain) often drives this similarity or difference. In other words cultural transfer means a transfer of concepts, which affects L2 lexicon. When speaking about L1 transfer in L2 idioms, for example, L1 non-equivalents of L2 idioms would affect the production of these L2 idioms because of the non-existence of the concepts, they represent, in the L1 culture. ‘To give someone a heads-up’ is in Russian
Предостеречь (to warn) which is not idiomatic, non-equivalent translation of the English
idiom, because neither idiomatic concept nor idiomatic linguistic representation like to give
heads-up does exist in Russian. Therefore, Russians are expected to just produce ‘to warn’ instead of ‘to give someone a heads-up’, showing a linguistic and cultural negative L1 transfer. Idioms have their own lexical entries in L1 and L2 but in case of non-equivalent counterparts in L1 there is no equivalent idiomatic concept in the mother tongue to base the L2 idiom’s linguistic representation on, consequently, they are very hard to learn.
In other words, the most obvious cases of a cultural negative L1 transfer happen, due to the difference in conventional knowledge, which L2 vocabulary is based on, because L2 conventional knowledge forms concepts that are culture-specific and therefore may have no linguistic equivalents in L1, so learner of L2 often simply translates from L1 to L2 literally. This is how most mistakes are made in L2 idioms which have non-equivalent counterparts in L1.
Kovecses and Szabo in 1996 tested 30 adult Hungarian learners of English on the acquisition of figurative phrasal verbs (e.g. speak up, run down), as one of the representatives of idiomatic language. The participants were divided into 2 groups: the first got 10 phrasal verbs (further PVs) with up and down on the blackboard with Hungarian counterparts. The
meanings were explained, the students were instructed to remember the PVs. The task was to fill in the missing adverbial particles in all 20 sentences within 20 minutes. The second group had all the same conditions except for the fact that the PVs used were grouped according to the conceptual metaphors that these PVs represent. For instance, the concept of being finished (COMPLETION) IS upward orientation in this culture, for instance, eat up, chew up, wind up, give up. CONTROL IS UP and LACK OF CONTROL is DOWN : bow down, knock down. As a result, the researchers found that when PVs are not just stored as chunks in L2 learners' lexicon (if this is a teaching strategy) but when adverbial particles and their meanings are explained, L2 learners who know conceptual metaphors may refer to metaphorical meaning to produce a correct adverbial particle. I believe, that conceptual metaphors that form idiomatic expressions can be culture-specific, for instance, FREEDOM TO ACT IS HAVING THE HANDS FREE. To understand the English expression ‘his hands are free’ or ‘my hands are
tied’, the concept of freedom to act has to exist in L1.
The experiment, conducted by Kovecses and Szabo, was informal and there was no rigorous statistical analysis conducted, and the authors themselves confirm that no statistical significance could be claimed. Conceptual metaphors are widely used as means/strategy/tool of teaching the figurative language in the second language teaching practice because this way teachers build up metaphorical competence in L2 learners, which is the first milestone on the way to advanced proficiency in idiomatic language and L2 in general.
For some idioms, there is no other way except for to be learned as chunks in the lexicon, because no logical explanation or motivation could be drawn from their constituents (e.g. to kick the bucket). Nevertheless, existing concepts or conceptual metaphors form most idiomatic expressions. According to Kovecses & Szabo (1996), studying the cognitive motivation of the use of the idioms’ constituent words helps to better learn the meanings of idiomatic expressions in L2, especially non-equivalent counterparts in L2. Thus, L2 learners should learn L2 concepts, that might not exist in their L1, and idioms they represent in order to acquire these L2 idioms in the first place.
2.3.2 Linguistic L1 transfer in case of idioms
The process of idioms’ acquisition in L2 may be difficult from a linguistic point of view because of L1 transfer. When L1 and L2 are similar linguistically, it would lead to a positive
L1 transfer, because linguistic representations of the concepts and the concepts themselves, most of the time, coincide (e.g. equivalents: ‘a stab in the back’= ‘een steek in the rug’(a stab in the back)). According to Kharitonova (2013), transfer is even more evident in L2 vocabulary, especially if the L1 and L2 are related:
“The cases of both positive and negative transfer are more frequent between the languages that are closely related, thus L1 transfer will take place far more often for the Norwegian English learners than for the Russian English learners because Norwegian and English belong to the same group of Germanic languages, while Russian belongs to the Slavic languages” (Kharitonova 2013, p. 2).
A great example of a positive L1 transfer (linguistic and cultural) is given in the study by Laufer (2000). She investigated whether English PVs were avoided by Hebrew L1 speakers depending on the degree of similarity the idiomatic counterparts of L1 and L2 have. 56 university students of English were tested on 20 idioms in a fill-in translation test. The results showed that there was a significant difference between the number of idioms used in different idiom types, i.e. that there was an effect of degree of L1-L2 similarity on the use of idioms. The translation equivalents contained the largest number of idioms as answers, rendering a positive L1 transfer.
For the current study the research done by Kovecses and Szabo (1996) provides a solid ground for a discussion about a linguistic negative L1 transfer in case of analogues, because concepts are present in L1 and L2, but linguistic representations are different. The same conceptual metaphors in two different languages can be expressed in different words, and these words can vary stylistically. For instance, in English ‘To give a taste of one’s own
medicine’: ‘to give a taste’ is ATTACK, while in Dutch ‘een koekje van eigen deeg’ (a cookie
of your own dough) is ATTACK. Both expressions in Dutch and in English mean the same -to avenge oneself in the same manner as he/she was hurt, but different words (with different meanings) are used to express the same concept - an ATTACK. This is what we call an analogue in this research. Analogues, consequently, should evoke a great deal of difficulty (negative L1 transfer, especially linguistic/lexical one) in L2 learners and speakers, because of the constant competition between two absolutely different linguistic representations of the same concept.
This study provides a theory to explain a linguistic L1 transfer as one of the reasons L2 speakers experience difficulty with analogous counterparts in L2.
2.3.3 Other factors
There has been a debate about other factors, except for linguistic and cultural similarity, that influence idioms’ acquisition in L2. Garnier and Schmitt (2016) have tested L2 learners’ knowledge of frequent poly-semantic (those that have more than one meaning) idiomatic English phrasal verbs, as representatives of idiomatic language and factors that influenced this knowledge. 128 students of the BA English courses from Chile aged 18-44 took a productive test - a gap-fill task. As a result, 40% of the most common PV meanings were known by the participants and only 20% of all other idiomatic meanings of each PV were shown to be known. The corpus frequency, time spent reading a week, time spent social networking a week have shown to exert influence on the process of PVs’ acquisition. The semantic opacity of PVs, the type of L2 instruction, L2 environment, and the year of BA study were reported to have no influence on the learning of PVs and surprisingly, neither hours spent listening to music nor watching movies in English affected this process.
Influence of reading and socializing in L2 on idiom acquisition seems convincing to me for the reasons, first of all, that when we read or talk to people, context is supplied. Having analyzed what happened or was described before and after the idiomatic expression was used, we can arrive at a conclusion about what the idiom means. Moreover, when speaking L2 to people, we make use of facial expressions and other pragmatic cues that help us to guess the correct meaning of an idiom. Consequently, in this study we decided to also investigate if the number of English books read a year and number of hours a week spent socializing in English can predict idiom production scores. Moreover, as it has already been stated in section 2.3., L2 proficiency is known to affect L2 speakers avoidance of L2 idioms (Laufer 2000). Therefore, we are going to investigate whether L2 proficiency influences idiom production scores.
2.3.4 Idiom production in L2
Irujo (1986a) conducted a study to investigate whether L2 learners use knowledge of their L1 in the comprehension and production of idioms in their second language (L1 transfer). Twelve Venezuelan advanced learners of English, whose L1 is Spanish, took part in this research. All subjects took the tests in the following order: discourse-completion,
translation, definition, multiple-choice. 45 English idioms: 15 identical (equivalents) in form and meaning to their Spanish counterparts, 15 similar (analogues) to their Spanish counterparts, and 15 different (non-equivalents) from the corresponding Spanish idioms were used to test comprehension with the help of a multiple-choice test and a definition test. The same 45 idioms were tested with a discourse-completion test and a translation test. The recognition test was a multiple choice test which contained: the correct paraphrase of the idiom, a sentence related to the correct paraphrase, a sentence related to the literal interpretation, and an unrelated sentence. During the comprehension test the participants had to write a definition of the idiom in either English or Spanish. The recall test was a discourse completion task consisting of a paragraph containing the idiom with a word missing; subjects had to fill in the missing word.
The production test was a translation task, although the subjects were not told that they had to translate the idiom. Each item consisted of a paragraph in Spanish containing the idiom and an English translation of the paragraph with the idiom omitted (see Table 4). Subjects were asked to supply the English idiom which they would use in that situation. According to Irujo, examples of all three types of idioms were given in the instructions, so subjects would know that a literal translation was not always possible.
Table 4. A sample test item from Irujo (1986):
Los dos hermanos siempre se peleaban. Por fin su madre no podia mis, y les grito, "!Basta ya! Estoy hasta la coronilla de estas peleas!"
The two brothers were always fighting. Finally their mother couldn't take any more, and she shouted, "Enough! ____________________________with these fights!"
The results show that identical idioms (in our terms: equivalents) were the easiest to comprehend and produce. Similar idioms (in our terms: analogues) were comprehended almost as well as identical idioms but showed interference (negative L1 transfer - mistakes) from Spanish. For instance, in case of analogues, the subjects gave a literal translation of a Spanish word/idiom or showed overgeneralization or overextension of a word in the English idiom: put your leg in your mouth results from interference from the similar equivalent Spanish idiom meter la pata ("to put in the leg"), or is it an overextension of the English word
foot. Different idioms (in our terms: non-equivalent) were the most difficult to comprehend
and produce but showed less interference (mistakes) than similar idioms. Within each condition, the idioms that were comprehended and produced most correctly were those which
were frequently used and transparent (motivated by the conceptual metaphor) and which had simple vocabulary and structure. The type of interference (negative L1 transfer) varied from subject to subject. Some substituted words with similar words with literal meanings or the collocation of antonyms. Others would confuse parts of one English idiom with another which would result in blends (kick the towel: kick the bucket + to throw in the towel) (Irujo 1986). Moreover, there were such strategies employed by the participants, which led to the negative transfer, like providing an incomplete idiom, using an English idiom different from the expected one either acceptable equivalent or unacceptable non-equivalent or using a phrase which is not idiomatic.
In this study the same 45 idioms as material were used to test comprehension and production in the same 12 participants which could have led to unreliable results because participants had had a chance to become familiar (primed) with the idioms by the time they move on to the next task. Moreover, firstly, it is said in Irujo’s study that the participants were not told that they had to translate idioms, but at the same time the participants were given the examples of all three types of idioms in the instructions. Therefore, the instructions in the production task are not clear. So the subjects would realize that a literal translation was not always possible, which, I believe, tests participants’ knowledge of the idioms, but not necessarily their use. They could have subconsciously tried to give the “right” answer instead of giving the answer, they would use in spontaneous speech. In addition, it is not explicitly mentioned, if the subjects in Irujo’s study had to supply the missing English idiom in writing or orally and if there was any time limit set to answer. Answering in writing gives the participants much more time to think over the possible answers and analyse the sentence, where the idiom has be fit in, and choose the correct one or sometimes even guess it (guess what answer is expected of him or her).What is more, Irujo differentiates only between a positive and a negative transfer. But even both positive and negative L1 transfers can be linguistic, syntactic, semantic or cultural etc. L1 transfer should be defined more specifically. As described in the methods section 4., the current study attempts to address these problems.
3. Hypotheses and predictions
The goal of this research is two-fold: a) to detect potential (linguistic and cultural) transfer from L1 Dutch and from L1 Russian in the production of L2 English idiomatic expressions, and b) to investigate if the (non-)resemblance of idioms in two languages plays a
role in L2 idiom production. The description of the previous studies in section 2 renders the following hypotheses and predictions with respect to these two aims:
Regarding transfer:
L1 transfer to L2 takes place in the production of idiomatic expressions. Because of the closer cultural and linguistic resemblance between Dutch and English, there is more positive L1 transfer in the case of Dutch. A prediction that follows is that overall, Dutch learners of English are better at English idiom production than same-proficiency Russian learners of English;
Irrespective of the language pair:
Based on Irujo’s (1986) findings: Idioms that are analogues in L1 and L2 are more prone to a linguistic negative L1 transfer than equivalents or non-equivalents. This predicts more linguistic errors (substitution of functional words and main words of the idiom) in analogues than in equivalents or non-equivalents in both Dutch and Russian learners of English;
Based on Irujo’s (1986) findings: equivalent idioms are acquired most easily, rendering the highest scores, showing a linguistic and cultural positive L1 transfer; non-equivalent idioms are acquired last, rendering the lowest scores, showing a cultural and linguistic negative L1 transfer;2
more advanced learners of English (whether their L1 is Dutch or Russian) are better at idioms than less advanced learners of English.
the number of English books read a year and number of hours a week spent socializing in English correlates positively with the idiom production scores.
4. Method
2 In particular, a positive L1 transfer is expected in case of equivalents because a concept and a linguistic representation coincide in L1 and L2 (participants are expected to get a score 3), a negative linguistic transfer is expected in case of analogues because concepts do exist in both languages but linguistic representations are different (most participants are expected to get a score 1 or 2, make the most mistakes in) and finally, a negative linguistic and cultural L1 transfer is expected in case non-equivalents because most of the time both concepts and linguistic representations differ in L1 and L2 (participants are expected to get a score 0 most of the time, and make less mistakes in than in analogues). A qualititive difference between negative transfer in analogues and non-equivalents is predicted.
This study is tapping into production of English idioms only (as opposed to production AND comprehension in Irujo’s study (1986)) under time pressure of 10 seconds with the help of a translation task and without making it explicit that there are different types of idioms or even that the participants are expected to give an idiomatic expression as an answer. This way we tap into the participant’s actual use rather than just knowledge of idioms. Moreover, in predictions we specify what kind of negative and positive L1 transfer we expect in translation of one or the other type of L1 idiom counterpart. Furthermore, it tests L2 English idiom production in two groups of speakers, namely, Russian L1 speakers and Dutch L1 speakers. This allows for the comparison of L1 transfer between two linguistically and culturally different languages.
4.1 Participants
There are two groups of participants: 15 native speakers (10 males and 5 females) of Dutch (age range 16-58 and age mean 30.8) from Amsterdam and 15 native speakers (5 males and 10 females) of Russian (age range 16-33 and age mean 25.3) from Moscow. Both of these groups speak English as their second language and started studying English after the age of 12. No participants, to the best of their knowledge, have any language problems such as dyslexia or a specific/developmental language disorder.
4.2 Procedure
All participants read the Information brochure about this research and its procedure (where it was not explicitly stated that we are testing L1 transfer in L2 idioms, only that we are testing if there is an influence of L1 on L2) and signed the Informed Consent approved by the Ethics Committee of the University of Amsterdam.
Before the experiment the researcher sent every participant a language use and background questionnaire via e-mail to fill out. The language use and background form was about language use and self-estimated proficiency.
The actual experiment consisted of three parts. During the first part of the experiment, the participant and a researcher were in a quiet room. The participant was given a memory test - Digitspan forwards and backwards. This task took approximately 8 minutes. During the second part of the experiment, the participant was asked to do an English language proficiency test - English C-test (2 texts out of 5). This part of the experiment lasted about 12 minutes. Finally, in the third part of the experiment, the participant was seated in front of a researcher. First, the participants were given 5 practice items in their native language (Dutch or Russian) to translate orally into English, to become familiar with the task and after that the actual experiment started. When he or she were ready, the researcher played a recording with a task, where a sentence or a phrase was pronounced in their mother tongue (Russian or Dutch). For instance:”Met vlag en wimpel” (with flag and pennant; “with flying colors”). After this sentence the participant was asked: ”How would you say the same in English?” The time limit of 10 seconds was given to answer. The participant was free to answer more quickly. The answers were audio-recorded. This was repeated 39 times, 10 of which were phrases-fillers. All items were randomized to prevent clustering. The third part of the experiment took around 10 minutes. When finished, the participants were asked some questions about the procedure of this experiment like:”Was this experiment hard? Rate 1 to 10 (10 is very hard). If yes, explain why.”, which took approximately 3 minutes.
4.3 Material
4.3.1 Idiomatic expressions
There are three types of counterparts that the experimental items are divided into: equivalent, analogue and non-equivalent (see section 2.1. for definitions). Theoretically, there are 9 possible combinations of the different types of counterparts (equivalent, analogue, non-equivalent) in the three languages, and thus, 9 conditions could logically be created, see Table 5.
Table 5. 9 logically possible conditions.
English idiom Dutch Russian
1 equivalent equivalent
2 equivalent analogue
3 equivalent Non-equivalent
5 analogue analogue
6 analogue Non-equivalent
7 Non-equivalent equivalent
8 Non-equivalent analogue
9 Non-equivalent Non-equivalent
However, it was not possible to find sufficient experimental items for each possible condition. It was particularly difficult to create experimental items for the following three conditions, see Table 6:
Table 6. Three conditions excluded from the experiment
English Dutch Russian
1 equivalent Non-equivalent
2 analogue equivalent
3 Non-equivalent equivalent
Therefore, we ended up using 6 experimental conditions. We also tried to control for frequency. The facilitating power of idioms’ corpus frequency on the production of idiomatic expressions (see section 2.3.3) has been taken into consideration and we decided to control our English idioms for frequency. Liu (2003) conducted a corpus-based study where he analyzed Barlow's (2000) Corpus of Spoken, Professional American English, a corpus of spoken American media English (Liu 2002), and Simpson et al.'s (2002) Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English and identified the most frequently used spoken American English idioms for college and other professional ESOL students learning American English and related their frequency. A frequently used idiom is an idiom that occurred at least 12 times in all three corpora together (i.e., two tokens per million words). We identified idioms’ frequency, based on the lists compiled by Liu (2003), and selected only infrequent ones for the actual experimental items and frequent ones for the practice items in our experiment. The reasons to do this were the following: first, most frequent idioms had only equivalents or non-equivalents (description) in Dutch and Russian and had too simple syntactic construction and a transparent meaning. Therefore, we decided to use those as practice items as they are frequently heard and easy to produce. While infrequent idioms of L2 require more effort to be
learned and more knowledge to use appropriately, especially by different L1 speakers (Liu 2003).
In other words, we only used English idioms that are infrequent according to Liu (2003), because the participants may produce correctly and more of frequent idioms only due to the fact that they are frequently used and not necessarily due to their equivalency status. The material in this experiment consists of 26 English idioms in total and their counterparts in Dutch and Russian. 26 experimental items in the following conditions summarized in Table 7.
Table 7. The examples of the experimental items in every condition 1. Dutch
equivalent - Russian equivalent (5):
The walls have ears Equivalent
De muren hebben oren
the wall.pl have ear.pl
“the walls have ears”
Equivalent
У стен бывают уши wall.pl have ear.pl "walls have ears"
2. Dutch
equivalent - Russian analogue (5):
Through thick and
thin Equivalent
Door dik en dun through thick and thin
“through thick and thin”
Analogue
И в горе и в радости And in sorrow and in joy
“And in sorrow and in joy”
3. Dutch analogue
- Russian analogue (5): Drunk as a skunk Analogue Stomdronken Stupiddrunk “blind drunk” Analogue Пьяный в стельку Drunk in insole "Drunk in insole"-lit.tr.(very drunk) 4. Dutch analogue - Russian non-equivalent(5):
With flying colors Analogue
Met vlag en wimpel with flag and pennant
“with flying
colours”
Non-equivalent Cдать на отлично Pass for excellent “To pass with a high score”
5. Dutch non-equivalent - Russian analogue (3):
To judge the book
by its cover Non-equivalent Op de eerste indruk
Analogue
afgaan
on the first impression go off “to go off on the first impression”
а провожать по уму Meet.inf upon clothes but leave.inf upon intelligence
“To meet based on clothes, but to leave based on intelligence” 6. Dutch
non-equivalent - Russian non-equivalent(3):
To stop and smell the roses
Non-equivalents De tijd nemen om te genieten
the time take to enjoy
“to take the time to enjoy” Non-equivalents Отвлечься от дел и получить удовольствие от жизни Distract.inf. (yourself) from business and get.inf. pleasure from life “To distract yourself from business and to get pleasure from life”
Practice items were created to begin the experiment with in order to familiarize the subjects with the task and procedure of this experiment. All the practice items were frequent idiomatic expressions in order to make their production easier (Liu 2003).
There were 5 practice items in the following conditions: Table 8. Practice items
English idiom
Dutch
Russian
1 To play with fire Equivalent
Met vuur spelen with fire play.inf “to play with fire”
Equivalent
Играть с огнём Play.inf with fire “to play with fire”
1 To break the ice Equivalent
Het ijs breken ice break.inf “to break the ice”
Analogue
Разрядить обстановку Discharge.inf situation “to discharge (a) situation”
1 Piece of cake Analogue
Appeltje eitje apple egg “easy peasy”
Analogue
проще пареной репы easier steamed turnip “(it is) easier (than) steamed turnip”
1 Hang in there Analogue
Hou je taai hold you tough “stay strong”
Non-equivalent Держись hold
“hold yourself” 1 Pull yourself together Non-equivalent
Verman jezelf man yourself “get yourself together” Non-equivalent Соберись gather “gather yourself”
Moreover, there were 10 fillers in this experiment to distract the subjects from the critical items, see Table 9.
English
Dutch
Russian
1 She often drives Zij rijdt vaakShe drive.3p.sg often “She often drives”
Она часто водит She often drive.3p.sg “She often drives” 2 To babysit sometimes Soms op kinderen passen
sometimes kids babysit.inf or sometimes after kids look
“to babysit sometimes”
Сидеть с чужими детьми иногда
Sit.inf with stranger’s children
“To sit with someone else’s children”
3 To cook from time to time
Af en toe koken
from time to time cook.inf “to cook from time to time”
Время от времени готовить
Time to time cook.inf “To cook from time tp time”
4 To read out loud Hardop lezen out loud read.inf “to read out loud”
Читать вслух Read.inf out loud “To read out loud” 5 To attend classes Lessen bijwonen
lessons attend.inf “to attend lessons”
Посещать уроки Attend.inf classes “To attend classes”
6 To ask for help Om hulp vragen
about help ask.inf “to ask for help”
Просить помощи Ask.inf help “To ask for help” 7 A favourite book Een favoriete boek
a favourite book “a favourite book”
Любимая книга Favourite book “A favourite book” 8 To reject an offer Een voorstel afwijzen
an offer reject “to reject an offer”
Отклонить предложение reject.inf. Offer
“to reject an offer”
9 A serious job Een serieuse baan
a serious job “a serious job”
Серьезная работа Serious job
“A serious job” 10 To celebrate a holiday Een feest vieren
a holiday celebrate.inf “to celebrate a holiday”
Праздновать праздник Celebrate.inf
holiday
“To celebrate a holiday”
Fillers and experimental items were randomized to prevent clustering: grouping of items according to their mutual features, which could facilitate participants’ guessing the answers. The task test sentences and the participants’ answerswere audio-recorded with the help of iPhone6 voice recorder in a quiet room. Native speakers of Dutch and Russian were recorded pronouncing the actual Dutch and Russian equivalents in order to make this experiment sound as natural as possible for the L1 speakers in this experiment. All the idioms and fillers used in this experiment can be found in the Appendix section.
4.3.2 Memory test
Memory of every participant was tested with the help of a standardized test - Digitspan Forwards and Backwards auditorily, a component of the Wechsler Intelligence Scales for Children-Revised (WISC-R), a measure of short-term memory for children aged seven and over (Wechsler 1991). Digits Forward measures short-term auditory memory, while Digits Backward taps the ability to manipulate verbal information while in temporary storage - a working memory. The results of all the participants, whose total raw score was less than 8, were excluded from this study in order to prevent the subjects to perform poorly due to the memory problems. First, the participant was tested with the Digitspan Forwards. The participant was sitting in a quiet room across the researcher. When the participant was ready, the researcher asked him/her:”Listen carefully as I say some numbers, when I finish, you say them.” Then the participant was tested with the Digitspan Backwards. The researcher asked the participant:”Now listen carefully as I say some numbers, when I finish, you say them backwards.” The answers of the participants were audio-recorded with a voice-recorder of iPhone6. In the light of this study it is important that the participants do not have any memory
problems, because translation task requires subjects to not only process but also remember what idiomatic expression they have just heard.
4.3.3 Proficiency test
For the general prediction of this study about that speakers with the higher English proficiency are generally better at the production of English idiomatic expression than speakers with the lower English language proficiency and to have a more reliable estimation of L2 proficiency, English language proficiency was tested with the help of a standardized English language proficiency test - the English C-test (2 texts out of 5) (Keijzer 2007). Every participant was given 2 small text in total, where parts of some words have been left out. The task was to fill in the gaps. The answers were given in writing. 6 minutes were allocated to complete each text.
4.4 Data analysis
4.4.1 Scoring
In terms of scoring in the translation task, the maximum score per correctly translated item was 3 point. It was considered to be worth 3 points if English translation, which was the target response, was given or other idiom that has the same meaning (‘easy peasy’ instead of ‘a piece of cake’) and if the participant gave the right expression only in a different part of speech ( ‘to play with fire’ vs. ‘playing with fire’). The answer was worth 2 points if the participant substituted a functional word (preposition) with a wrong one (‘the grass is always
greener ON the other side’ vs. ‘the grass is always greener AT the other side’). And finally,
only 1 point was given if the participant substituted the main word of the expression with another one, which allows it to communicate the idea, but the expression is not that fixed anymore (‘a stab in the back’ vs.’a knife in the back’). 0 points were assigned if the expression given was not idiomatic, did not communicate the right meaning or more than 1 main word, that carries the core meaning of the whole idiom, were substituted.
4.4.2 Statistical analysis
A linear mixed-effects model: score ~ L1 * prof + idiom.type + read + use + (idiom.type | Part) + (1 | item), was used in R Studio to conduct a statistical analysis in this study. The
dependant variable in this model is a score which is a function of between-participant predictors L1, L2 proficiency, reading (English books read a year), use (hours of English used a week) and a within-participant predictor idiom type (equivalent, analogue, non-equivalent). The main research question answering effect is due to L1, because we hypothesize that the same proficiency Dutch speaker of English are better at L2 idiom production than Russian speakers. The interaction has been included because we would like to check who would profit from the improving proficiency: the Dutch or Russians. Linear mixed-effects model was chosen because we have got several measurements per participant (idiom.type| Part) and a random intercept per item (1|item) was included in the model because the same target English idioms have to be translated but the actual material that the participants receive during the experiment are their L1 counterparts, thus, are different per item. Linear mixed-effects model in R does not supply p-values per predictor, therefore, it is common to present | t |values to specify significance of an effect. It should be 2 or bigger for an effect to be significant. Moreover, we supply Hedges gs effect sizes for every predictor (0.2=small effect, 0.5=medium effect, 0.8=large effect). Hedges gs was chosen because the sample sizes are less than 20.
5. Results and Discussion
The results of our linear mixed effects model analyses are presented in Table 10. Table 10. The results and the size effects
Estimate Std. Error |t| value Hedges gs effect size
(Intercept) -0.594437772 0.470682557 -1.262927 -0.44869
L1:+Dutch,-Rus -2.074729743 0.902487734 -2.298901 -0.81675
Proficiency 0.037874992 0.014458362 2.619591 0.93069
Idiom type:-non-an+equi 0.929645166 0.155563237 5.975995 2.12315
Idiom type: +an-non 0.172276948 0.127200909 1.354369 0.48118
Read -0.001439826 0.001180797 -1.219368 -0.43322
Use 0.005346003 0.002614899 2.044440 0.72635
L1:+Dutch,-Rus:proficiency 0.069102070 0.026874879 2.571251 0.91351
For ease of reading, we first repeat our list of predictions in Table 11.We then present and discuss the descriptive statistics related to each prediction, followed by a discussion of the linear mixed effects model results in Table 10 relevant to the prediction.
Table 11. Predictions Regarding transfer:
Dutch learners of English are better at English idiom production than same-proficiency Russian learners of English;
Irrespective of the language pair:
Based on Irujo’s (1986) findings: More errors (due to a linguistic negative L1 transfer) in analogues than in equivalents or non-equivalents in both Dutch and Russian learners of English;
Based on Irujo’s (1986) findings: equivalent idioms are acquired most easily, rendering the highest scores showing a linguistic and cultural positive L1 transfer; non-equivalent idioms are acquired last, rendering the lowest scores showing a linguistic and cultural negative L1 transfer;
more advanced learners of English (whether their L1 is Dutch or Russian) are better at idioms than less advanced learners of English.
the number of English books read a year and number of hours a week spent
socializing in English a week correlates positively with the idiom production scores.
Regarding our first prediction, the statistical analysis showed that the major research question answering interaction between L1 and L2 proficiency has a significant effect on English idiom production scores (see Graph 1). The Dutch and Russian lines in this graph do not start at the same point because the average score in English idiom production in Russians with low proficiency (23 out of 40) is much lower than that of the Dutch. Moreover, the lowest proficiency scores are different for the Russian and Dutch participants: 23 out of 40 vs. 32 out of 40.
Our Dutch participants scored better at the translation task of English idiomatic expressions (by 0.069102 points) than same-proficiency Russian participants and this difference is significant (|t|=2.571; CI= 0.015352....0.122852 points), so we can conclude that the Dutch perform better at production of English idiomatic expressions than the same-proficiency Russians do. This means that our first prediction is borne out, providing evidence
for the hypothesis that
because of the closer cultural and linguistic resemblance between Dutch and English, there is more positive L1 transfer in the case of Dutch.
Based on Irujo’s (1986) findings we have two predictions: first, there are more errors in analogues than in equivalents or non-equivalents in both Dutch and Russian learners of English due to a linguistic negative L1 transfer. Second, equivalent idioms are acquired most easily, rendering the highest scores showing a linguistic and cultural positive L1 transfer; non-equivalent idioms are acquired last, rendering the lowest scores showing a linguistic and cultural negative L1 transfer. Our participants performed better on equivalents than on analogues and non-equivalents (by 0.929645 points) and this difference is significant (|t| =5.976;CI= 0.618519....1.240771 points), while performance on analogues has appeared to be a little better than the performance on non-equivalents (by 0.172277 points), and this difference is not significant (|t|= 1.354). We can conclude that equivalents are easier to produce than non-equivalents and analogues, therefore, it provides evidence for a linguistic and cultural positive L1 transfer in case of equivalents irrespective of L1, but we can not conclude that analogues are easier or harder to produce than non-equivalents (see Graph 2). As it can be seen on the Graph 2., non-equivalents were produced the worst, but we can not say anything about significance. Consequently, we can not conclude anything about a linguistic negative L1 transfer and about a linguistic and cultural negative L1 transfer.
Graph 2. Idiom production scores with different idiom types
In order to see what kind of scores were received and mistakes were made, we have conducted a qualitative analysis, which shed some light on what experimental items the participants received scores 1 or 2 for (2 - substituted a functional word (preposition) with a wrong one; 1- substituted the main word of the expression with another one, which allows it to communicate the idea, but the expression is not that fixed anymore). All the items, the mistakes in which were made, are summarized in the Table 12. Take into consideration that we did not analyze items for the translation of which the participants received 0 score, because the participants either did not know this idiom in English or made too many mistakes and this translation can not be considered an English idiom, which means that there is no L1 transfer, because you can not make mistakes in something you do not know.
Table 12. The experimental items the most mistakes were made in
Dutch Russian
to face the music (analogue) a change of heart (non-equivalent) a change of heart (non-equivalent) to put away for a rainy day (analogue) in a blink of an eye (equivalent) it is a matter of life and death (equivalent) a stab in the back (equivalent) a stab in the back (equivalent)
the grass is always greener on the other side (equivalent)
First, I am going to show some concrete examples of translation by the Dutch participants. For instance, when the Dutch participants were given ‘De gevolgen onder ogen
zien’ (to face the consequences) - an analogue and were asked to say the same but in English,
instead of the target idiom ‘to face the music’ the following translations were given: 4 times ‘to face the consequences’ and once as ‘facing your problems’. These answers show that there is a negative lexical (linguistic) L1 transfer from Dutch to L2 English: the Dutch word ‘gevolgen’ (consequences) is translated literally into English and taken as a part of the actual English idiom, while it is actually not. Thus, the Dutch idiom negatively influences the English one, which results in an incorrect idiom production:‘to face the consequences’ instead of ‘to face the music’. This is an evidence of a negative lexical L1 transfer, because the concept itself - to accept the consequences - exists in both English and Dutch, but the lexical representations are different.
The second example I am going to analyse is the target idiom ‘A change of heart’ which has a non-equivalent in Dutch/a description (not an idiom) ‘Verandering van mening’ (change of opinion). The Dutch participants translated the Dutch description into English literally as ‘A change of opinion’. This translation, given by the Dutch participants, demonstrates the negative lexical (linguistic) L1 transfer as well. This example is very interesting because the concept of - ‘changing of opinion’ - does exist in Dutch and in English the only difference is that there is no idiomatic counterpart for this concept in Dutch, therefore it has a descriptive translation or non-equivalent in Dutch.
The third example is the English idiom ‘in a blink of an eye’ which has an equivalent counterpart in Dutch ‘In een oogopslag’ (in a glance). The English translation that was given by the most participants was ‘in a glace’. The first obvious reason why the participants were tempted to give such translation is that syntactically it is exactly as the idiom in Dutch is, composed of 3 words in exactly the same order. Therefore, it is evidence for a negative syntactic L1 transfer.
The fourth, fifth and sixth examples of idioms in which the Dutch participants made mistakes in this study, all, have equivalent counterparts in Dutch. English ‘A stab in the back’ has en equivalent in Dutch ‘Een steek in de rug’ (a stab in the back). Even though there is an equivalent in Dutch, some participants translated it as ‘A knife in the back’, demonstrating a negative linguistic L1 transfer, which is strange considering the fact that the concept of -betrayal - exists in both cultures and the linguistic representations coincide. Maybe since all the concepts that are semantically connected to the concepts of the constituent words of the idiom and their representations are altogether activated when the idiom is encountered, then the word ‘knife’ somehow may seem more appropriate or the participants may find it a safe strategy to use this word instead of ‘stab’ (Sprenger et al. 2006).
Instead of the English ‘The grass is always greener on the other side’ it was sometimes translated as ‘the grass is always greener at the other side’ or ‘the grass is always greener
across the street’ when the equivalent ‘Het gras is altijd groener aan de overkant’ ( the grass
is always greener on the other side) was given. This is an evidence of a negative lexical L1 transfer, because the concept is present in both languages but the words are substituted in the linguistic representation.
The mistakes made in equivalents could be explained by the distributional difference in Dutch and Russian counterparts of such English idioms. According to Laufer 2000, distributional difference is when a category (concept) which exists in both languages is used in different conditions, or for different purposes in each language. That is why even though two idioms can be equivalent in both languages but their use can be different.
There are some examples of translations given by the Russian participants, which they made mistakes in. The English ‘A change of heart’ has a non-equivalent description as a translation in Russian ‘Изменение намерений’ (A change of intentions). This is exactly how Russians translate it, they do not give an English idiom as translation which demonstrates a negative lexical L1 transfer because the concept does exist in Russian culture as well as in English one, but there is no idiomatic expression as a lexical representation that would communicate this concept in the Russian language.
The English ‘to put away for a rainy day’ has an analogous counterpart in Russian ‘Отложить на черный день’ (To put away for a black day). The Russian counterpart was literally translated from Russian into English. So instead of a target item, the participants would give a translation ’To put away for a black day’, which demonstrates a negative lexical L1 transfer.
Instead of ‘It is a matter of life and death’ the following translation was given ‘ It is a
question of life and death’ just as a Russian equivalent ‘Вопрос жизни и смерти’ ( It is a
question of life and death), because for most Russians ‘a question’ is the same as ‘a matter’, and using a word ‘question’ does not seem odd for them. It is a great example of a negative lexical L1 transfer.
Instead of ‘A stab in the back’ the participants gave a translation ‘Knife in the back’ just as a Russian equivalent ‘Нож в спину’ (Knife in the back). These two idioms are equivalents because there is a concept of - betrayal- in both cultures, but there is no such a word as a stab in Russian. Therefore, the only word that can communicate this idea is a knife, which leads to a negative lexical L1 transfer.
