<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>This study aims to examine the comprehension of L2 metonymies by Arabic-speaking EFL learners and to investigate the extent to which the participants’ L1 conceptual and linguistic knowledge of metonymies can affect the processing of L2 metonymies. A comprehension task was administered to elicit data, and the results showed that the participants encountered various degrees of difficulty comprehending different types of metonymies. Though metonymy has been regarded as a universal cognitive device, numerous factors can collaborate to hinder its comprehension process. The researchers argued that the non-conventionality of conceptual metonymies, the non-compositional nature of metonymy processing, the lack of direct exposure to metonymy as a cognitive referential device in L2, and the differences between L1 and L2 possibly contributed to the participants’ faulty answers on the administered test. The study concluded with a set of pedagogical implications and recommendations for further research studies.</p></abstract>

This study aims to examine the comprehension of L2 metonymies by Arabic-speaking EFL learners and to investigate the extent to which the participants’ L1 conceptual and linguistic knowledge of metonymies can affect the processing of L2 metonymies. A comprehension task was administered to elicit data, and the results showed that the participants encountered various degrees of difficulty comprehending different types of metonymies. Though metonymy has been regarded as a universal cognitive device, numerous factors can collaborate to hinder its comprehension process. The researchers argued that the non-conventionality of conceptual metonymies, the non-compositional nature of metonymy processing, the lack of direct exposure to metonymy as a cognitive referential device in L2, and the differences between L1 and L2 possibly contributed to the participants’ faulty answers on the administered test. The study concluded with a set of pedagogical implications and recommendations for further research studies.

On the comprehension of metonymical expressions by Arabic-speaking EFL learners: A cognitive linguistic approach

Topics in Linguistics

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

This study aims to examine the comprehension of L2 metonymies by Arabic-speaking EFL learners and to investigate the extent to which the participants’ L1...

On the comprehension of metonymical expressions by Arabic-speaking EFL learners: A cognitive linguistic approach

Published Online: Jun 22, 2020

Page range: 45 - 61

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/topling-2020-0003

Keywords
linguistics, cognitive semantics, second-language acquisition, metonymy, Arabic-speaking EFL learners

© 2020 Aseel Zibin et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

On the comprehension of metonymical expressions by Arabic-speaking EFL learners: A cognitive linguistic approach

Published Online: Jun 22, 2020

Page range: 45 - 61

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/topling-2020-0003

Keywordslinguistics, cognitive semantics, second-language acquisition, metonymy, Arabic-speaking EFL learners

© 2020 Aseel Zibin et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Keywords
linguistics, cognitive semantics, second-language acquisition, metonymy, Arabic-speaking EFL learners