Idiom comprehension strategies used by English and Russian language learners in a Think-Aloud study

This cross-language mixed methods study examined idiom comprehension strategies of foreign language (FL) learners with dissimilar first language (L1) and challenges they faced during a Think-Aloud reading task. The purpose of this research was to investigate how English language learners (ELLs)—i.e., university students in Russia—comprehend transparent English idioms in jokes and how Russian language learners (RLLs)—i.e., university students in the USA—comprehend transparent Russian idioms in jokes. Background questionnaires were used to screen participants (intermediate level FL learners, minimum 18 years old, studying English or Russian as a foreign language at the university level). The materials were 15 short English jokes and 15 Russian jokes (10 jokes in each set contained idioms, and 5 were used as distracters). Each joke was based on plays on words (distracters) or literal and metaphorical meanings of an idiom. The idioms were identical, similar, dissimilar, or with no analogs in L1 and had been rated by 6 raters on a 5-point scale from least transparent (1) to most transparent (5). The researcher met with each of 30 volunteers (20 ELLs and 10 RLLs) who passed the screening for individual Think-Aloud sessions. ELLs and RLLs were asked to verbalize their thoughts concurrently while deciding whether there was an idiom in a joke they read. During a retrospective Think-Aloud, they were asked followed-up questions about the strategies they used and challenges they faced. The protocols were parsed into T-units (Hunt, 1970) and then open-coded to identify idiom comprehension strategies and common problems and challenges that ELLS and RLLs faced during an idiom comprehension task. Twenty identified idiom comprehension strategies fell into 3 broad categories—cognitive, metacognitive, and socio-affective. The challenges were grouped into 5 major difficulties due to different factors: (1) unknown vocabulary or unfamiliar idioms; (2) no analog idioms in L1; (3) cultural differences; (4) lack of experience dealing with plays on words and reading jokes; (5) lack of a broad context in which the idiom was presented. Descriptive statistics revealed the frequencies of successful and unsuccessful instances of idiom recognition and comprehension. A chi-square test was used to examine whether idiom comprehension strategies were equally used by ELLs and RLLs and whether idioms of a different category (identical, similar, dissimilar to L1, and no analog) and level of transparency (low, moderate, and high) were equally recognized and comprehended. The Pearson correlation test was performed to determine whether there was a significant correlation between idiom recognition and comprehension and whether some strategies were positively or negatively correlated with idiom recognition, idiom comprehension and experience—i.e., the years of FL instruction that ELLs and RLLs received. Qualitative methods made it possible to examine this phenomenon in depth and thus explain quantitative findings of this study. Implications of the study include an important message for FL instruction concerning explicit teaching of comprehension strategies and including jokes in reading materials. Comprehension strategies (idiom comprehension strategies, in particular) are not often taught in a FL class. Though the research (Cummins, 1979, 1991) shows that learners can transfer their L1 strategies to L2, FL students do not always know whether L1 strategies will be effective while reading a FL text. The findings of this study also suggest using linguistic jokes based on plays on words and literal and nonliteral meanings of idioms because humorous discourse is an effective pedagogical tool in language learning. Moreover, since—according to previous research (Muhalcea & Pulman, 2007)—jokes include frequently occurring words, they will be invaluable in teaching FL vocabulary. It is impossible for a FL learner to learn all idioms in a target language since there are thousands of them. Idiom comprehension strategies, however, can be explicitly taught to FL learners. Learning these strategies will enable them to decode the meaning of unknown idioms they encounter while reading FL texts. In this study, more successful readers used more effective top-down strategies, which demonstrated they had efficient cognitive processing. The protocols that successful ELLs and RLLs produced were characterized by rich, intelligible, and comprehensive thinking in contrast to the more incoherent and skimpy thought verbalizations of less successful readers. A mixed method analysis of Think-Aloud protocols pointed to the integral role of idiom comprehension strategies as well as to differences in the strategies used by ELLs and RLLs