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This study examines the comprehension of English idioms by Korean learners by addressing the following two questions: (i) Does decomposability also play a role in L2 idiom comprehension? (ii) Which has a stronger influence on L2 idiom comprehension ― decomposability (lexical aspect) or conceptual metaphor (conceptual aspect)? L1 processing studies have investigated whether decomposable idioms (i.e., idioms whose individual
semantic components contribute to their overall figurative meanings) are processed faster than nondecomposable idioms. Psycholinguistic studies have also shown that people’s tacit knowledge of conceptual metaphors such as LIFE IS A JOURNEY partly motivates how they make sense of idioms like be over the hill. Previous studies, however, did not test both hypotheses simultaneously.
The present study attempts to fill this research niche with L2 data using an off-line English-to-Korean translation task. It is assumed that idioms motivated by conceptual metaphors that exist both in L1 and L2 are easier for L2 learners to comprehend than those that don’t. The results support the hypothesis that decomposable idioms are processed more easily than nondecomposable ones.
That is, decomposability plays a role not only in L1 idiom processing but also in L2 idiom comprehension. With regard to the second research question, the results showed that the role of conceptual metaphors is more significant than the effect of decomposability. The contribution of the present study lies in the fact that it synthesizes both linguistic and conceptual aspects of idioms. The pedagogical implication is that L2 learners get benefits from the conceptual
aspects of idioms and therefore do not always have to resort to rote learning.