The ability to understand idioms in younger and older adults

Abstract

There are well-established terms in a language that consist of two or more words. They have a unique meaning that cannot be derived from the meaning of individual words of which they are composed. Units with this status in the lexicon are idioms. Given the frequency of their use, understanding idioms is of great importance for successful communication. The aim of the paper was to examine the ability to understand idioms in adults, since the work of foreign authors about issue does not clearly indicate whether this ability declines with ageing. A total of 57 subjects were divided into two age groups (20 to 25 and 70 to 90 years of age) in which the understanding of the idiom was assessed by defining ten selected terms and describing the situation in which the example could be used. The results obtained did not show that this ability declines with age, but it was found that in both younger and older adults it depends on the degree of exposure to idioms as well as on the degree of semantic transparency of the expression itself. The results are even more valuable as they relate to the examination of the later language development in native speakers of Serbian, and in addition to theoretical, they may have practical value in the acquisition of syntactic and semantic features of lexemes and expressions, as well as, in the work with children who have manifested different forms of developmental linguistic disorders.

U jeziku postoje ustaljeni izrazi koji se sastoje od dve ili više reči. Oni imaju jedinstveno značenje koje se ne može izvesti na osnovu značenja pojedinačnih reči od kojih su sastavljeni. Takve jedinice u leksikonu su idiomi. S obzirom na frekventnost njihove upotrebe, razumevanje idioma je od velikog značaja za uspešnu komunikaciju. Cilj rada je bio da se ispita sposobnost razumevanja idioma kod odraslih osoba budući da radovi stranih autora iz ove oblasti ne ukazuju nedvosmisleno da li ova sposobnost opada sa godinama. Uzorak je činilo 57 ispitanika podeljenih u dve uzrasne grupe (od 20 do 25 i od 70 do 90 godina) kod kojih se razumevanje idioma procenjivalo na osnovu definisanja deset izabranih izraza i navođenjem situacije u kojoj bi se dati primer mogao upotrebiti. Dobijeni rezultati nisu pokazali da ova sposobnost opada s godinama, ali je utvrđeno da ona i kod mlađih i kod starijih osoba zavisi od stepena izloženosti idiomima, kao i od stepena semantičke prozirnosti samog izraza. Rezultati su utoliko dragoceniji jer se odnose na ispitivanje kasnijeg jezičkog razvoja izvornih govornika srpskog jezika, te pored teorijskog mogu imati i praktični značaj kod usvajanja sintaksičkih i semantičkih svojstava leksema i izraza, kao i u radu sa decom kod koje su uočeni različiti oblici razvojnih jezičkih poremećaja.