Interlanguage idiomatics : the acquisition of English idioms by Filipino learners

Abstract

Knowledge of idioms in the target language played an important part in the language use, given that people encounter idioms in all kinds of discourse; news, lectures, movies, books and even in their daily conversations. Also, mastery of English idioms is an essential part of learners’ lexical and cultural competence. Prudent suggestions in the processes that partake in the interlanguage idiomatic were stipulated in this study. Furthermore, this study examines the effect of the respondent’s first language (L1) in acquiring and comprehending the idioms in their second language (L2). The respondents of this study were 41 students whose L2 is English. The questionnaire used was adapted from Banjar (2014) which tested the receptive and productive knowledge of 15 English idioms of three types: a) English idioms which have their exact counterpart in Filipino; b) English idioms which have their similar counterpart in Filipino; and c) English idioms which have no counterparts in Filipino. The data were statistical analyzed. Thus results revealed that English idioms with direct equivalent in Filipino are the easiest to comprehend and produce. English idioms with similar and without counterparts in Filipino were the difficult to comprehend and produce, showing the highest interference of the respondents’ L1. These findings suggest intuitive inferences for the teaching and learning of L2 idioms. Particularly, the L1 of the learners has an impact in acquisition of the target idioms. Thus, teachers and researchers must be aware of it. Hence, learning the idioms in a second language must be fix and systematic. Generally, the results and patterns of the previous research about the acquisition of target idioms and its part in the production and effective comprehension of the L2 are verified by this study.