Original scientific paper

Motivation in Understandability of Meaning in Italian Idiomatic Expressions among Second Language Speakers

Irena Marković orcid.org/0000-0002-3563-9862 ; University of Zadar

Abstract

This article deals with the cognitive linguistic approach of idiomatic expressions in Italian language. It explores the motivation of meaning in phrases for Croatian L2 speakers of Italian language. The arbitrary character in one lexical unit (word) when learning a second language often leads to a very low level of meaning transparency of a newly learnt word. With idiomatic expressions there is a mitigating circumstance that similarity idioms in Croatian and Italian facilitate their interpretation (and their metaphorical meaning): understanding the meaning of Croatian phrases automatically leads to high transparency meaning of Italian idioms (and other way round: negative transfer). The survey was conducted on subjects with Croatian as their mother tongue, while their second language was Italian. The preliminary testing selected the most familiar idiomatic expressions in Croatian language, which are then specifically divided into four groups: a) absolute Croatian-Italian equivalents, b) partial equivalents (semantic-formal) and different equivalents, c) Italian idiomatic expressions without Croatian equivalents, and d) archaic Croatian idiomatic expressions (to determine parallels in interpretation and motivation with those in the third group). In the first group the hypotheses about motivation in meaning will be explained by the positive transfer of L1 to L2. In the second and third group we will try to interpret the results of motivation and transparency of meaning of half known and unknown idiomatic expressions using cognitive mechanisms of metaphor, metonymy and conventional knowledge, and by the level of knowledge of L2 or other foreign languages, as well as folk etymology. They will help us to explain what motivates higher or lower transparency of meaning in unfamiliar idioms of L2 (when there is no equivalent in L1, there is a partial equivalent, or there is an absolute equivalent). The aim of this study is to understand whether the same psycho-cognitive processes and mental images affect the interpretation of meaning in mother tongue and another foreign language.

Keywords

semantic motivation; idiomatic phrases; Italian L2 speakers; idiomatic transparency; L1 transfer

Hrčak ID:

218446

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/218446

Publication date:

28.2.2019.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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