Salience effect on the processing of idioms in L1: Evidence from Malay Simpulan Bahasa
Experimental investigations into figurative language processing have received little attention for languages other than English and several major European languages. Research on the Malay language, in particular, has been very limited. This study thus aimed to investigate the figurative language...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Faculty of Language and Communication, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak
2015
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| Online Access: | http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/22108/4/salience%20effect%20on%20the%20processing%20of%20idioms%20in%20L1.pdf http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/22108/ http://www.ils.unimas.my/ |
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| Summary: | Experimental investigations into figurative language processing have received little
attention for languages other than English and several major European languages.
Research on the Malay language, in particular, has been very limited. This study thus
aimed to investigate the figurative language processing of familiar Malay idioms by
L1 native speakers. Familiarity or salience is hypothesised as having a dominating
effect in the processing of idiom meaning. This means, regardless of context or other
possible factors, salience is said to determine processing advantage. A total of 24
participants completed a timed lexical-decision task after listening to idiomatic
stimuli. Eight highly familiar idioms embedded in neutral sentences were used as
auditory stimuli, and were paired visually together with either their figurative or
literal meaning as target words. Results revealed a similar processing speed for
responses to both literal and idiomatic meanings. Hence, it was concluded that the
salience levels of both meanings are balanced in line with the Graded Salience
Hypothesis. |
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