Metaphors in English Idioms

Funded by FWF (Austrian Science Fund; I 5280-G); binational project with Tver State University (RUS)
Duration: 2021-2025
Principal Investigator (AUT): Alexander Onysko
Project team (AUT): Carina Rasse, Lisa Papitsch, Iris van der Horst

Principal Investigator (RUS): Nataliya Kryukova
Project team (RUS): Elena Isakova, Elena Alexandrova

International collaborator: Herbert L. Colston (University of Alberta)
Designer: Clemens Steuxner

Description:
The project investigates the role of conceptual metaphors and visual aids for learning English idioms by learners of L1 German and L1 Russian backgrounds. To test for possible effects, a set of experiments is carried out consisting of the following:

• Norming study of 100 difficult idioms: This study tests a pre-established set of 100 difficult English idioms by asking advanced learners of English to state or guess the meaning of the idioms
  Status: completed; results presented at:
  RaAM 16 Conference (Alcalá, Spain; June 27-30, 2023)
• Norming study of image sets (literal, meaning, combined) for 21 idioms: Participants indicate how well a particular image would fit with an idiom in an idiom dictionary
  Status: completed; results presented at:
  FTL 7 Conference (Genova, Italy; September 20-22, 2023)
  RaAM 8^th Specialized Seminar (Macerata, Italy; June 6-7, 2024)
• Transfer Study testing metaphors and L1 influence: In a retention task design, participants learned a set of idioms through contexts and were tested on their recall after a distractor phase
  Status: completed; data analysis ongoing
• Testing the effect of image types on the retention of idioms: In a retention task design, participants are exposed to idioms, their meanings and one of the three image types (literal, meaning, combined). Potential effects of image types on recall will be tested
  Status: Implementation stage