Dear Ornela Findrik,

Neowhorfianistic studies (e.g., John Lucy, 2004) have substantiated a long- standing debate concerning the relationship between language and taught. Clearly, as language proficiency develops, learners' perception of idiomatic expressions is proportionately boosted beacuse the learners' state of mind can easily capture and demystify far-fetched associations underlying idioms. Wish you lots of luck in your research.

Best regards,

R. Biria

This is something like "chicken and egg problem". There is a one-to-correspondence between language proficiency and language perception. Language growth, under normal circumstances, goes on a par with language perception. You can find neuronic background of this issue under biolinguistics and neurolinguistics. Take a look a Chomsky's principles and parameters theory as well.

In addition, semantic growth in non-native leearners is a solid evidence to your topic. Extension of meanings of words is another solid proof. Good luck for your research.

The accuracy of the child’s categorisation ability(according to Piaget) is refined over time as the child begins to

(a) develop transitive inference ability which enables them to them to conceptualize and categorize concrete objects based on multiple features

(b) begins to understand the principles of cause and effect relationships and

(c)develops the ability to understand sequences and changes in objects states and can understand the consequences of these changes.

As development proceeds, the child becomes less dependent on context based cues and is able to think about abstract concepts and develops the ability to reason about objects even if they are not present in the child’s immediate environment. Abstract reasoning is dependent upon the child’s ability to retrieve prior knowledge from memory and accurately apply it to current thought processes. Eventually, the child develops metacognition skills that allow  him/her to reflect on and modify mental processes and prior knowledge. Abstract reasoning and metacognition skills form the foundation for skills such as problem solving, reasoning and critical thinking.

Hi Colleague

You have good feedback on the topic in hand. I suggest considering lexical approach in mind, try utilising self-talk (a neglected area) of the students and then map and jive it. I hope it helps!  

Constantine, one of my children was able at 2 years to use the word "remember" in discussing something that had happened a couple of weeks before.  Does that give you some data about when the various phases take place? 

Martha,Yes he developed (quite early) the ability to understand the notion of time by associating  changes in  states (within time lapses)  so as  to understand the consequence of such changes.

It was very exciting to see kids learning to talk.  You could see better what they were really thinking.  Once one of them had been playing in the house next door.  When she came home and I was getting her ready for bed, she looked out the window, and said, "Our moon looks just like Karla's moon.  It was the first time I realized that she thought each house had its own moon.

In relation to your topicic:  mental perception of idioms in EFL learners, you should first considered what idiom is, and at what levels (phonology, sintax, semántic, pragmatic) of the language (in reading, listening, speaking and writing) it affects the most. Idioms frequently have a figurative nor a literal meaning, which is sometimes very difficult to grasp. Sometimes there are linguistic signs or indexes  which help the second language learner to  have an idea of the meaning. For example, in “you should keep an eye out for that”, there are words related with the idea for mainteining awareness of something. In this case, the figurative takes the forms of a literary figure named metonimy, and one can figure out the meaning. In other cases, the idioms do not offer indixes to grasp the meaning like “cost an arm and leg”, even though there is a tendency in some languages to express the high cost of something with a part of the body, like in spanish the idiom “constó un ojo de la cara” (it costs an eye of the face”). So I think that learning idioms is part of learnig the culture of the language. They are culturally determined, i.e. the way people conceptualiize the world which is reflected in language. Generally, the second learner has to memorize them as they are improving the knowledge of the pragmatic system of the second language. They are pragmatically oriented. So a pragmatical and cultural approach has to be considered in studing idioms.

I like very much the chapter entitled “Idioms, Transparency and Pragmatic Inference” by ROSA ELENA VEGA MORENO.

In relation to your topicic:  mental perception of idioms in EFL learners, you should first considered what idiom is, and at what levels (phonology, sintax, semántic, pragmatic) of the language (in reading, listening, speaking and writing) it affects the most. Idioms frequently have a figurative nor a literal meaning, which is sometimes very difficult to grasp. Sometimes there are linguistic signs or indexes  which help the second language learner to  have an idea of the meaning. For example, in “you should keep an eye out for that”, there are words related with the idea for mainteining awareness of something. In this case, the figurative takes the forms of a literary figure named metonimy, and one can figure out the meaning. In other cases, the idioms do not offer indixes to grasp the meaning like “cost an arm and leg”, even though there is a tendency in some languages to express the high cost of something with a part of the body, like in spanish the idiom “constó un ojo de la cara” (it costs an eye of the face”). So I think that learning idioms is part of learnig the culture of the language. They are culturally determined, i.e. the way people conceptualiize the world which is reflected in language. Generally, the second learner has to memorize them as they are improving the knowledge of the pragmatic system of the second language. They are pragmatically oriented. So a pragmatical and cultural approach has to be considered in studing idioms.

I like very much the chapter entitled “Idioms, Transparency and Pragmatic Inference” by ROSA ELENA VEGA MORENO.

What is the correspondence between language proficiency and mental perception? - ResearchGate. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_is_the_correspondence_between_language_proficiency_and_mental_perception [accessed Mar 18, 2016].

The impact of language proficiency as a potential contributor to ethnic disparities in mental health care has received less attention than other factors. Translators, interpreters and linguists define different levels of language proficiency with different terms: bilingual, fluent, proficient, native speaker and others. It’s the relative similarity of these terms that makes the need for more concrete definitions all the more necessary in order to avoid confusion and misrepresentation of an individual’s linguistic capabilities. A person with poor mental health or a mental disease may perceive things much differently than a mentally healthy person.