The role of reticence in the comprehension of metaphorical taboo expressions in the foreign language

The present study focuses on the influence of L2 learners' attitudes toward and perception of sexual taboos on their comprehension of metaphorical taboo expressions. Other aspects such as the presence of contextual information and the L2 learners' stay-abroad experience were also included in the study design. A total of 53 students of Spanish as a foreign language were presented with metaphorical taboo expressions from the MadSex corpus. They also were asked to rate their reticence to talk about sex and to use sexual taboo expressions. The results show that a higher degree of reticence to talk about sex is associated with a worse performance on the metaphor comprehension test. Furthermore, learners with a stay-abroad experience outperformed their counterparts on the comprehension test, but they did not guess the meaning from the context more successfully. Finally, participants with stay-abroad experience found it more acceptable to use sexual taboo expressions. Nuestro estudio se centra en la influencia de la actitud y percepcion hacia el tabu sexual de los aprendices de L2 en la comprension de expresiones metaforicas tabu. Otros factores, como la presencia de informacion contextual y la experiencia de los aprendices de L2 en el extranjero, tambien se incluyeron en el diseno del estudio. Se presentaron expresiones metaforicas tabu del corpus MadSex a un grupo de 53 estudiantes de espanol como lengua extranjera. Ademas de interpretar las expresiones, los participantes tenian que calificar su reticencia a hablar sobre temas sexuales y a utilizar expresiones tabu sexuales. Los resultados muestran que un mayor grado de reticencia a hablar sobre temas sexuales se asocia con un peor rendimiento en la comprension de metaforas. Por otra parte, los participantes con experiencia en el extranjero obtuvieron mejores resultados en la prueba de comprension, aunque su capacidad para deducir el significado del contexto no mostro una mejora significativa. Finalmente, los participantes con experiencia en el extranjero encontraron mas aceptable usar expresiones tabu sexuales.

Automated summary

This study focuses on the influence of L2 learners' attitudes toward and perception of sexual taboos on their comprehension of metaphorical taboo expressions. The results show that a higher degree of reticence to talk about sex is associated with a worse performance on the metaphor comprehension test. Furthermore, learners with a stay-abroad experience outperformed their counterparts on the comprehension test, but they did not guess the meaning from the context more successfully. Participants with stay-abroad experience found it more acceptable to use sexual taboo expressions.