The Cloze Response Patterns of L1 and L2 Students to Literal and Idiomatic Text

Abstract

A lack of background knowledge has been shown to contribute to the difficulty ESL students have in comprehending text. An important part of background knowledge is an understanding of metaphor. The study measured the effects of metaphor on ESL adults' reading comprehension. Two passages were selected that were comparable in difficulty; one containing many idiomatic items, the other containing only literal language. The passages were made into cIoze passages and were administered to randomly selected native English speaking university students and adult ESL students. The university students scored significantly higher on both the literal and idiomatic passages than the ESL students. The ESL students scored significantly higher on the literal passage than they did on the idiomatic passage while the university students scored significantly higher on the idiomatic passage than the literal passage. Idiomatic language resulted in lower comprehension for the ESL students while it increased the English speakers' scores. It was concluded that since the vehicles of many metaphors have become lost and are not retrievable from surface structure, it may be necessary to teach metaphors as vocabulary items. Further research into the methodology of teaching metaphor is called for.