There are grounds for believing that prompting language learners to infer the meaning of new lexical items is beneficial because inferring the meaning of lexical items and verifying one's inferences invites more cognitive investment than simply being presented with the meanings. However, concerns have been raised over the risk that wrong…

Metaphors are well-known tools for teaching statistics to novices. However, educators might overlook metaphor theoretical developments that offer nuanced and testable perspectives on their pedagogical applications. This article introduces the notion of metaphor types--"correspondence" (CO) and "class inclusion" (CI)--as…

Conceptual Metaphor (CM; e.g., Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, 1999; Kovecses, 2020) is central to our thinking and ubiquitously manifested in our language. Given its importance, the teaching of conceptual metaphors has gained much attention in Cognitive Linguistics and Applied Linguistics. While most empirical studies have focused on specific aspects…

This study investigated the relationship between a metaphor-based approach to teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) and involvement of the brain's right hemisphere. Specifically, it examined learners' understanding of three levels of sureness associated with different expressions in English -- those that are "certain,"…

Idioms are a colourful and fascinating aspect of English which are commonly used in all types of language, formal and informal, spoken and written. Despite the emerging theoretical accounts of idioms up to now, little attention has been paid to teaching and learning idiomatic expressions in English as a Foreign Language, English for Specific…

It is evident from the PISA 2018 results that a trend in mean performance in reading has been declining in the Slovak Republic. The KEGA Project "Idioms in Business Communication", run at the Department of English Language, aims at improving reading literacy, widening formal and informal vocabulary and facilitating business…

The present study was motivated by theoretical considerations in cognitive linguistics associated with the concept projection as well as by theories in cognitive science related to self-directed learning on computers, to apply them in developing Japanese learners' knowledge of the different degrees of sureness attached to CERTAIN, PROBABLE, and…

Chinese idioms are mostly four-character phrases and are called Quadra-syllabic Idiomatic Expressions (QIEs). It has long been reported that learning of Chinese QIEs poses a great challenge for both young L1 speakers and adult L2 learners as the condensed form is often associated with complicated figurative meanings. The present study explored the…

Although metaphors are essential tools in everyday communication and educational settings, the literature lacks evidence of effective training tools to promote metaphor comprehension in typical development. Grounding in theoretical pragmatics, we developed a novel metaphor comprehension training (MetaCom) for school-age children that focuses on…

The issue of phrasal verb learning has caused much discussion and attracted vigorous investigation. Inspired by the theory of conceptual metaphor, a pedagogical experiment was conducted to investigate whether an approach focussing on sense extension of particle "out" in terms of conceptual metaphors can enhance the learning of phrasal…

This study explores English for specific purposes learners' understanding of technical words in a previously-developed technical word list in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). The principal aim was to estimate what kind of technical terms pose problems to TCM learners and might therefore merit special attention in instruction. Of particular…

The present study aimed at investigating the effects of learning lexical chunks on the speaking fluency of EFL Iranian learners (between the ages of 13 and 17) and at the same time taking into consideration the examining participants' use of lexical chunks and their knowledge of them. To this end, after administrating the Quick Placement Test…

This study aims to investigate how Turkish Teacher Trainees of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) interpret implied meanings, which is an integral but lesser-studied component of pragmatic competence. The conduct of the study began with the development of an online multiple-choice discourse completion test (MDCT) through two piloting phases.…

This study investigates the effects of conceptual metaphors on Turkish EFL learners' acquisition of phrasal verbs. The participants were 120 beginner, elementary, and pre-intermediate level students. The research follows a pre and post-test quasi-experimental research design. The students were assigned to proficiency levels according to their…

Idiomatic expressions are among the most difficult and challenging aspects in the realm of lexicon. The focus of the present study was on investigating the effect of short stories and pictures on learning idiomatic expressions by beginner EFL learners. For this aim, 52 Iranian EFL learners were chosen and assigned to three groups randomly: two…