Cover not available
Article published In:
Language and Linguistics
Vol. 22:4 (2021) ► pp.558–592

Chinese idioms as constructions

Frequency, semantic transparency and their processing

| National Taiwan University
| National Taiwan University

Chinese Quadrisyllabic Idiomatic Expressions (henceforth QIEs) are highly productive in the modern language. They can be used to understand the cognitive processing of structure and meaning during reading comprehension, as in the patterning of [qian-A-wan-B] ‘1k-A-10k-B’ (e.g. one-thousand army ten-thousand horse). However, little is known about the underlying mechanisms of QIEs during reading comprehension. Adopting the framework of Construction Grammar, in the present study, we aimed to study the convergence and divergence between native speakers and L2 learners in the processing of Chinese idiomatic constructions.

In the present study, twenty-three native university-level Mandarin speakers and twenty-three L2 learners of intermediate and advanced levels of Mandarin, all speakers of the non Sinosphere, participated in the experiment, and were instructed to make a semantic congruency judgment during the presentation of a QIE. Our results showed that, for both native speakers and L2 learners, semantically transparent idiomatic constructions elicited much shorter RTs than semantically opaque idiomatic constructions. Our behavioral results also showed that native speakers processed low frequency QIEs faster than high frequency ones, implying semantic satiation to impede the interpretation of high frequency idioms. For L2 learners, it was semantic transparency, rather than frequency, that played a more prominent role in idiom processing.

Keywords: Chinese idiomatic expressions, semantic transparency, frequency, construction grammar, second language acquisition
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Literature review
    • 2.1Critical factors contributing to idiom processing
    • 2.2Cognitive linguistics and Construction Grammar (CG)
    • 2.3The definition of Chinese idioms and their linguistic features
    • 2.4L2 acquisition of idioms
    • 2.5The current study
  • 3.Materials and methods
    • 3.1Participants
    • 3.2Materials
    • 3.3Experimental task and procedure
    • 3.4Results
      • 3.4.1Accuracy rates
      • 3.4.2Reaction times
  • 4.Discussion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 29 October 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lali.00091.liu
References
Ahrens, Kathleen
1995 The mental representation of verbs. San Diego: University of California at San Diego. (Doctoral dissertation.)Google Scholar
Bassett, M. F. & Warne, C. J.
1919 On the lapse of verbal meaning with repetition. The American Journal of Psychology 30(4). 415–418. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Berman, Ruth A. & Slobin, Dan I.
(eds.) 1994 Relating events in narrative: A crosslinguistic developmental study. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Boers, F. & Demecheleer, M.
2001 Measuring the impact of cross-cultural differences on learners’ comprehension of imageable idioms. ELT Journal 55(3). 255–262. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bybee, Joan L.
2006 From usage to grammar: The mind’s response to repetition. Language 82(4). 711–733. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bybee, Joan L. & Hopper, Paul J.
(eds.) 2001 Frequency and the emergence of linguistic structure (Typological Studies in Language 45). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bybee, Joan L. & Thompson, Sandra
2000 Three frequency effects in syntax. In Juge, Matthew L. & Moxley, Jeri L. (eds.), Proceedings of the Twenty-Third Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 14–17 February 1997: General session and parasession on pragmatics and grammatical structure (BLS 23), 378–388. Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society.Google Scholar
Cacciari, Cristina
2014 Processing multiword idiomatic strings: Many words in one? The Mental Lexicon 9(2). 267–293. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cacciari, Cristina & Glucksberg, Sam
1994 Understanding figurative language. In Gernsbacher, Morton Ann (ed.), Handbook of psycholinguistics, 447–477. San Diego: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Cacciari, Cristina & Tabossi, Patrizia
1988 The comprehension of idioms. Journal of Memory and Language 27(6). 668–683. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chen, Changlai
2012 Xiandai Hanyu leiguding duanyu yanjiu [Quasi-fixed structures in Modern Mandarin]. Shanghai: Xuelin Press.Google Scholar
Cicchetti, Domenic V.
1994 Guidelines, criteria, and rules of thumb for evaluating normed and standardized assessment instruments in psychology. Psychological Assessment 6(4). 284–290. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cieślicka, Anna
2006 Literal salience in on-line processing of idiomatic expressions by second language learners. Second Language Research 22(2). 115–144. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Croft, William & Cruse, D. Alan
2004 Cognitive linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cronk, Brian C. & Lima, Susan D. & Schweigert, Wendy A.
1993 Idioms in sentences: Effects of frequency, literalness, and familiarity. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 22(1). 59–82. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ellis, Nick C.
2002 Frequency effects in language processing: A review with implications for theories of implicit and explicit language acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 24(2). 143–188. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2006 Selective attention and transfer phenomena in L2 acquisition: Contingency, cue competition, salience, interference, overshadowing, blocking, and perceptual learning. Applied Linguistics 27(2). 164–194. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2013 Construction grammar and second language acquisition. In Hoffmann, Thomas & Trousdale, Graeme (eds.), The Oxford handbook of construction grammar, 365–378. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ellis, Nick C. & Laporte, Nadine
1997 Contexts of acquisition: Effects of formal instruction and naturalistic exposure on second language acquisition. In de Groot, Annette M. B. & Kroll, Judith F. (eds.), Tutorials in bilingualism: Psycholinguistic perspectives, 53–83. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Fillmore, Charles J. & Kay, Paul & O’ Conner, Mary Catherine
1988 Regularity and idiomaticity in grammatical constructions: The case of let alone . Language 64(3). 501–538. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fitzpatrick, Tess & Wray, Alison
2006 Breaking up is not so hard to do: Individual differences in L2 memorization. The Canadian Modern Language Review 63(1). 35–56. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Galmar, Bruno
2012 An investigation of the nature of verbal satiation in Chinese. Tainan: National Cheng Kung University. (Doctoral dissertation.)Google Scholar
Gibbs, Raymond W., Jr. & Nayak, Nandini P. & Cutting, Cooper
1989 How to kick the bucket and not decompose: Analyzability and idiom processing. Journal of Memory and Language 28(5). 576–593. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Giora, Rachel & Fein, Ofer
1999 On understanding familiar and less-familiar figurative language. Journal of Pragmatics 31(12). 1601–1618. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goldberg, Adele E.
1992 The inherent semantics of argument structure: The case of the English ditransitive construction. Cognitive Linguistics 3(1). 37–74. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1995 Constructions: A construction grammar approach to argument structure. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Goldberg, Adele E. & Casenhiser, Devin M. & Sethuraman, Nitya
2005 The role of prediction in construction-learning. Journal of Child Language 32(2). 407–426. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hovav, Malka Rappaport & Levin, Beth
2008 The English dative alternation: The case for verb sensitivity. Journal of Linguistics 44(1). 129–167. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hu, Ying-Hsueh & Fong, Yu-Ying
2010 Obstacles to CM-guided L2 idiom interpretation. In De Knop, Sabine & Boers, Frank & De Rycker, Antoon (eds.), Fostering language teaching efficiency through cognitive linguistics (Applications of Cognitive Linguistics (ACL) 17), 293–316. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jakobovits, Leon A.
1962 Effects of repeated stimulation on cognitive aspects of behavior: Some experiments on the phenomenon of semantic satiation. Montreal: McGill University. (Doctoral dissertation.)Google Scholar
Jakobovits, Leon A. & Lambert, Wallace E.
1962 Semantic satiation in an addition task. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology 16(2). 112–119. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kaschak, Michael P. & Glenberg, Arthur M.
2000 Constructing meaning: The role of affordances and grammatical constructions in sentence comprehension. Journal of Memory and Language 43(3). 508–529. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Liu, Shuxin
1990 Hanyu miaoxie cihuixue [Chinese descriptive lexicology]. Beijing: The Commercial Press.Google Scholar
Liu, Te-hsin & Lu, Chiarung & Tsai, I-ni & Su, I-wen
2017 Idiomaticity and regularity of Chinese four-character idioms: The case of [yi-X-#-Y]. (Paper presented at the 29th North American Conference on Chinese Linguistics (NACCL-29), Rutgers University, New Brunswick, 16–18 June 2017.)
Liu, Yuehua
2005 Chengyu yu duiwai Hanyu jiaoxue [Idiomatic expressions and teaching Chinese as a foreign language]. In Teng, Shou-hsin (ed.), Ershiyi shiji Huayu jigou yingyun celue yu jiaoxue guoji yantaohui lunwenji [Proceedings for the 2005 International Symposium on Operational Strategies and Pedagogy for Chinese Language Programs in the 21st Century], 298–303. Taipei: Mandarin Training Center, National Taiwan Normal University.Google Scholar
Lu, L. & Liu, H.-H.
1998[1994] Xiuding Bi-Pao-De tuhua chihui ceyan [Peabody picture vocabulary test – revised]. Taipei: Psychological Publishing. (Mandarin Chinese version, an earlier version is published in 1994.)Google Scholar
McGraw, Kenneth O. & Wong, S. P.
1996 Forming inferences about some intraclass correlation coefficients. Psychological Methods 1(1). 30–46. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Meyer, Charles F. & Grabowski, Roger & Han, Hung-Yul & Mantzouranis, Konstantin & Moses, Stephanie
2003 The world wide web as linguistic corpus. In Leistyna, Pepi & Meyer, Charles F. (eds.), Corpus analysis: Language structure and language use (Language and Computers: Studies in Practical Linguistics 46), 241–254. Amsterdam: Rodopi. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Moon, Rosamund
1998 Fixed expressions and idioms in English: A corpus-based approach. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Nunberg, Geoffrey & Sag, Ivan A. & Wasow, Thomas
1994 Idioms. Language 70(3). 491–538. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pinker, Steven
1989 Learnability and cognition: The acquisition of argument structure. Cambridge: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Plag, Ingo
2003 Word-formation in English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schneider, Walter & Eschman, Amy & Zuccolotto, Anthony
2002 E-prime user’s guide. Pittsburgh: Psychology Software Tools.Google Scholar
Schweigert, Wendy A.
1991 The muddy waters of idiom comprehension. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 20(4). 305–314. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Severance, Elizabeth & Washburn, Margaret Floy
1907 The loss of associative power in words after long fixation. The American Journal of Psychology 18(2). 182–186. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Skoufaki, Sophia
2008 Investigating the source of idiom transparency intuitions. Metaphor and Symbol 24(1). 20–41. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Su, Lily I-Wen
2002 Why a construction – That is the question! Concentric: Studies in Linguistics 28(2). 27–42.Google Scholar
Swinney, David A. & Cutler, Anne
1979 The access and processing of idiomatic expressions. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 18(5). 523–534. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tabossi, Patrizia & Fanari, Rachele & Wolf, Kinou
2009 Why are idioms recognized fast? Memory & Cognition 37(4). 529–540. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tsou, Benjamin K.
2012 Idiomaticity and classical traditions in some East Asian languages. In Manurung, Ruli & Bond, Francis (eds.), Proceedings of the 26th Pacific Asia Conference on Language, Information and Computation (PACLIC 26), 39–55. Depok: Faculty of Computer Science, Universitas Indonesia.Google Scholar
Wang, Li
1990 Idiom and classical illusion. In Wang, Li (ed.), Wang Li wenji [Collection of Wang Li], vol. 111, 653–672. Jinan: Shandong Educational Press.Google Scholar
Wang, Ruojiang
2001 Liuxuesheng chengyu pian wu youyin fenxi-cidian pian [Analysis of idiom errors made by foreign students]. Jinan daxue Huawen xueyuan xuebao [TCSOL Studies: Journal of College of Chinese Language and Culture of Jinan University] 2001(3). 28–35.Google Scholar
Wray, Alison
2002 Formulaic language and the lexicon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Xu, Sheng-huan
2006 Proximity and complementation: Studies of the formation mechanism of idioms from cognitive point of view (II). Jinan daxue Huawen xueyuan xuebao [TCSOL Studies: Journal of College of Chinese Language and Culture of Jinan University] 2016(3). 33–41.Google Scholar
Yang, Jie & Li, Ping & Fang, Xiaoping & Shu, Hua & Liu, Youyi & Chen, Lang
2016 Hemispheric involvement in the processing of Chinese idioms: An fMRI study. Neuropsychologia 871. 12–24. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zhang, Hui & Yang, Yiming & Gu, Jiexin & Ji, Feng
2013 ERP correlates of compositionality in Chinese idiom comprehension. Journal of Neurolinguistics 26(1). 89–112. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zhan, Weidong & Guo, Rui & Chen, Yirong
2003 CCL yuliaoku jiansuo xitong [The CCL Corpus of Chinese Texts: 700 million Chinese Characters, the 11th Century B.C.–present]. Beijing: Center for Chinese Linguistics, Peking University. ([URL]) (Accessed 2021-03-15.)
Zwitserlood, Pienie
1994 The role of semantic transparency in the processing and representation of Dutch compounds. Language and Cognitive Processes 9(3). 341–368. ( Language and Cognitive Processes is currently known as Language, Cognition and Neuroscience .) DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 3 other publications

Li, Liu
2023. Introduction. In Quadri-syllabic Schematic Idioms in Chinese: Description and Acquisition, ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Liu, Te-Hsin, Chia-Ho Lai & Tai-Li Chou
2023. The neurocognitive basis of Chinese idiomatic constructions and processing differences between native speakers and L2 learners of Mandarin. Frontiers in Psychology 14 DOI logo
Sidorova, Ayta Anatolievna & Sargylana Vasilievna Filippova
2023. The somatic code “head” in Chinese phraseology. Philology. Theory & Practice 16:8 ► pp. 2838 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 20 march 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.