Saudi Second Language Learners’ Receptive and Productive Skills in English Figurative Language

This study compares English and Arabic figurative expressions linguistically and conceptually and investigates how Arabic-speaking learners of English comprehend and produce English figurative expressions. It argues that English figurative expressions that are linguistically and conceptually similar to Arabic (SFE) are easy while English figurative expressions that are linguistically and conceptually different from Arabic (DFE) are difficult. Also, English figurative expressions that are linguistically different but conceptually similar to Arabic (S-DFE) are of medium difficulty. A comparative analysis was used to develop a set of tasks to test 100 students’ receptive and productive skills in English figurative language. The data came from 832 items identified in two ESL textbooks used with first year students at King Abdul Aziz University. The results show that SFE is much easier than DFE. S-DFE showed variable results but students tended to find them difficult. However, some examples of SFE were found difficult and of DFE easy. These indicate that similarities or differences across languages do not always make it easy or difficult for learners to understand and produce L2 expressions. The results also show evidence of positive transfer mostly with SFE, and negative transfer with DFE and S-DFE. The findings lend further support to the contrastive analysis hypothesis; however, they also support the cognitive approach because they show the role of learners’ linguistic and conceptual knowledge in the comprehension and production of L2 expressions. The findings of this empirical study demonstrate the essential roles of cross-linguistic comparisons of English and Arabic figurative language on the linguistic and conceptual levels for exploring learners’ receptive and productive skills in English figurative language. The classification of figurative language as easy or difficult has some implications for the teaching of English figurative expressions