Eliciting and measuring L2 metaphoric competence: three decades on from Low (1988)

TY - JOUR

T1 - Eliciting and measuring L2 metaphoric competence

T2 - three decades on from Low (1988)

AU - O'Reilly, David

AU - Marsden, Emma Josephine

N1 - ©The Author(s) (2020). Published by Oxford University Press. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self-archiving policy. Further copying may not be permitted; contact the publisher for details.

PY - 2021/2/1

Y1 - 2021/2/1

N2 - In 1988 and 2006, Applied Linguistics published Low’s and Littlemore and Low’s seminal theoretical accounts of second language (L2) metaphoric competence (MC). Meanwhile, attempts to elicit metaphor-related skills and competencies have been mixed. Instrumentation has varied in reliability, been limited in scope, and used arguably flawed reliability coefficients (McNeish, 2018). Factor analysis, used in first language (L1) MC and other areas of L2 research (e.g., Loewen et al. 2009) has not been used to explore variables. To address these issues, we developed a large battery of MC tests to elicit Low/Littlemore’s constructs, administering it to 112 L1 Mandarin speakers of L2 English and 31 L1 English speakers. Data cleaning revealed some operationalization challenges, but resulting overall reliability was high and demonstrated innovative use of ordinal omega as a powerful alternative to Cronbach’s alpha (Plonsky & Derrick, 2016). Exploratory factor analysis suggested four L2 MC variables: productive illocutionary MC, Metaphor language play, Topic/Vehicle acceptability, and Grammatical MC, broadly supporting Low/Littlemore’s proposals.

AB - In 1988 and 2006, Applied Linguistics published Low’s and Littlemore and Low’s seminal theoretical accounts of second language (L2) metaphoric competence (MC). Meanwhile, attempts to elicit metaphor-related skills and competencies have been mixed. Instrumentation has varied in reliability, been limited in scope, and used arguably flawed reliability coefficients (McNeish, 2018). Factor analysis, used in first language (L1) MC and other areas of L2 research (e.g., Loewen et al. 2009) has not been used to explore variables. To address these issues, we developed a large battery of MC tests to elicit Low/Littlemore’s constructs, administering it to 112 L1 Mandarin speakers of L2 English and 31 L1 English speakers. Data cleaning revealed some operationalization challenges, but resulting overall reliability was high and demonstrated innovative use of ordinal omega as a powerful alternative to Cronbach’s alpha (Plonsky & Derrick, 2016). Exploratory factor analysis suggested four L2 MC variables: productive illocutionary MC, Metaphor language play, Topic/Vehicle acceptability, and Grammatical MC, broadly supporting Low/Littlemore’s proposals.

U2 - 10.1093/applin/amz066

DO - 10.1093/applin/amz066

M3 - Article

SN - 0142-6001

VL - 42

SP - 24

EP - 59

JO - Applied Linguistics

JF - Applied Linguistics

IS - 1

ER -