Major Strategies to Process the Meanings of English Idioms

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CHAPTER IV RESEARCH RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The two reseach questions will be answered in this chapter: what are major strategies used by semester four students of ELESP to reveal the intended meanings of English idioms? How effective do the strategies lead semester four students to the intended meanings? By using theories which have been discussed in chapter 2, the reseacher tried to analyze the findings and interpret the results. Before going further to the discussion, the reseacher wants to emphasize that the English idioms used in this study belong to public idioms: general idioms which can be found in idiom dictionaries and used by English speakers Fernando, 1996, p. 67.

A. Major Strategies to Process the Meanings of English Idioms

This is the first problem which will be solved in this study. Principally, there are many strategies which can be used to reveal the meanings of English idioms by semester four students of ELESP. However, the researcher provides six strategies obtained from the preliminary instruments and the participants might use other strategies: strategies which might be used by the participants outside the six strategies. The findings are presented in the form of tables to encourage the readers to understand the results. The tables show the relative frequency f of the strategies see figure 3.9. By analyzing the f, it can be found out which strategies used more by semester four students. 66 There will be many tables in this section because the researcher will discuss the results separately in order to get thorough explanations. Besides, the researcher also uses some charts to help the readers to have better understanding in reading the results of this investigation. The following is the first table, table 4.1, which shows the frequency of using single and combination of some strategies. Table 4.1 Frequency of Strategies Using Single and Combination No. Strategies Frequency Relative Frequency f 1 Using background knowledge of students’ first language to find the equality or similarity in their mother tongue 57 8.05 2 Using context 243 34.32 3 Using direct translation 46 6.50 4 Creating some imaginations based on the words 184 25.99 5 Focusing on certain words in the idioms that can help the students to reveal the meaning 72 10.17 6 Relating each word in the idiom to another word in the idiom – association 65 9.18 7 Using other strategies 41 5.79 Table 4.1 contains the frequency of six strategies and other strategies such as wild guessing and remembering the meanings of certain English idioms from participants’ experiences: when they are playing games. The frequency of the strategies in table 4.1 is the accumulation of using a single strategy and using combination of some strategies: the researcher counts the frequency of using only one single strategy and using combination of some strategies. Combining strategies appear because the participants were allowed to use more than one strategies to reveal the meanings. One respondent might use two strategies or even 67 more than two strategies as long as the strategies can help them to get the actual meanings. By counting all of the strategies, the researcher is able to draw general conclusion: which strategies are used a lot by the semester four students of ELESP. By using the formula see figure 3.9, the researcher counts the frequency of those strategies. Having seen the f, it is clearly presented that strategy 2 34.32 and strategy 4 25.99 have the highest percentage. The others are below 10 and only strategy 5 can reach slightly above 10.17. The findings show that semester four students prefer using context where the idioms occur and creating some imaginations based on the words in the idioms which are in the second position to help them to decode the meanings of English idioms to using other strategies. In this category the accumulation of using a single strategy and using combination of some strategies strategy 2 and strategy 4 becomes the major strategies. If the results are depicted in a chart, then the picture will be as follows: Figure 4.1. Frequency of Strategies Single and Combination Chart 68 Figure 4.1 displays that the orange part and yellow part occupy the biggest space in the pie chart. They represent that they become the major strategies among other strategies. Other strategies only occupy the smallest part in the chart which represents that not many students used the strategies. If it is examined more clearly, the parts occupied by strategy 1, strategy 3, strategy 5, and strategy 6 have almost the same size. If the findings are connected to the theories on processing the meanings of idiom, then the two theories: three influencing factors in comprehending idioms and DCT can be used to support the results because the theories and the findings have strong relation. Strategy 2 reaches the highest frequency in this classification. It implies that the participants preferred using context to acquire the meanings of English idioms to using other strategies. Moreover, it can be inferred that semester four students of ELESP chose it as one of major strategies. In addition, there is also strategy 4 which attains the second highest position and become the other major strategy too. It has been discussed in the Chapter 2 that the three influencing aspects in comprehending idioms, especially context, will affect people in processing the meanings of idioms. It helps people in revealing what the theme of an English idiom in a certain sentence is about. By looking at the context, people are able to guess whether the idiom is trying to tell about education field, politics field, or even more specific matter such as someone’ characteristics or appearance and on and on. It is what is so called by giving more information which is not offered by the idiom itself. After having gone through such process, the actual meaning can 69 be acquired because people have had enough information to process the intended meaning. The other major strategy is strategy 4 which achieves 25.99. The theory which supports this result is DCT. DCT claims that it is easier for people to process something by using image representation. In processing the meanings of idioms, people will use both their verbal and nonverbal systems Ryu, Lai, Colaric, Cawley, Aldag, 2000. By activating those systems together in a certain way, the meanings can be acquired through imagination. Logically, concrete object is easier to be understood than abstract object. Concrete object here means something which can be represented in a picture, such as book, tree or chair, while abstract object is hard to be represented like wind or air. Therefore, by making some mental imagery about the words in the idioms, people are trying to process the actual meanings. The next table, table 4.2, displays the frequency of using only one strategy in processing the meanings of English idioms. The relative frequency shown is merely from using one strategy. Unlike table 4.1, the researcher does not count the combining strategies used by the participants. However, the results are the same; strategy 2 is still in the highest position. It touches 47.31, almost achieves a half of the percentage of all the strategies in that classification. In the second rank, it is still occupied by strategy 4. Other strategies do not show a great influence in helping the participants to reveal the meanings. They only reach under 10, even strategy 6 cannot touch 5; it stops at 4.83. Therefore, from the results, it can be concluded that in this category using only a single strategy, strategy 2 and 70 strategy 4 become the major strategies which are mostly used by semester four students of ELESP. Table 4.2 Frequency of Using Only One Strategy No. Strategies Frequency Relative Frequency f 1 Using background knowledge of students’ first language to find the equality or similarity in their mother tongue 16 7.73 2 Using context 98 47.34 3 Using direct translation 10 4.83 4 Creating some imaginations based on the words 48 23.19 5 Focusing on certain words in the idioms that can help the students to reveal the meaning 11 5.31 6 Relating each word in the idiom to another word in the idiom – association 10 4.83 7 Using other strategies 14 6.76 The results imply that context does help the students in revealing the actual meaning of English idioms. It is not only supported by the findings of the second questionnaire but also the results of the interview. Some of the interviewees admitted that often use contexts to process the meanings of English idioms because contexts can give them more information about the idioms. Moreover, one of the participants also claimed that contexts were really helpful especially for them as EFL to process the meanings of English idioms. He added that the process was already difficult although it involved context, how it would be when there is no context. Those statements show that contexts play an important role to help them to reveal the intended meanings. In fact, not only context which can affect the process of acquiring the actual meanings of idioms, the information carried by the idioms themselves also 71 becomes another essential factor, such as the degree of transparency. When the idioms have low transparency: not much information provided by the idioms to tell the meanings to the readers or hearers, in this case, contexts do help Moreno, n.d., p. 405. Idioms with high transparency will usually indicate that the meanings will be transparent too, such as in to break someone’s heart. It is considered as a high transparent idiom because people can guess the meaning by looking at the information in the idiom itself. Perhaps, breaking heart deal with hurting someone. Then, by using the information in the idiom itself, people are able to guess that the intended meaning is making someone disappointed. However, if the idiom has low transparency such as in beat around the bush, not much information that can be used to reveal the meaning. Therefore, if people encounter such idioms, then using context can be used as an alternative way to acquire the meaning. It is indeed difficult to process the meanings of English idioms when there is no context especially for non-native English speakers. Idioms are fixed expressions which have fixed meanings. Although the idioms are used in different context, the meanings carried by the idioms will never change. It is one of the reasons why people call idioms as language with a special feature. When there is not much information offered by the idioms, then making use of the contexts is one of the effective strategies that can be used to acquire the meanings. In this second category, the second position is still occupied by strategy 4. Similar to the results in the first classification, strategy four is mostly used by students to process the English idioms among other single strategies. Using image 72 representation to help people to learn a new language is not a new technique. By combining the verbal and non-verbal codes, people can acquire the meanings of the sentences or utterances, including acquiring the intended meanings of idioms. In comprehending the meaning of snake in the grass, for example, people can make use of the verbal and non-verbal codes shared by the idiom. By reading the idiom, the verbal codes are being processed and in the same time, mental representation is being activated. The processes are complement each other. By imagining the pictures of the idioms, people will try to make some sensees of the meaning evoked by the images. The following table, table 4.3, is different from the previous tables. The frequency written in the table is the results of the combinations of using two strategies in processing the meanings of English idioms. There are 17 strategies recorded by the researcher. Actually, there should be 21 combinations of two strategies. However, not all of the combinations were used by the participants. Nevertheless, the frequency appears in the table 4.3 is not much different from the frequency of using a single strategy see table 4.2. The combination of strategy 2 and strategy 4 still dominates and it reaches a higher percentage 36.67, compared to the highest percentage in using only one strategy. However, the gap between the highest and the lowest frequency is very far 35.84 with four combinations in the lowest rank: strategy 1 and strategy 5, strategy 3 and strategy 5, strategy 3 and strategy 6, and the last strategy 4 and strategy 5 0.83. The gap implies that the distribution of the strategies is unequal. Moreover, it also shows that there is a tendency of using a certain combination of strategies. 73 Table 4.3 Frequency of Using Two Strategies No. Strategies Frequency Relative Frequency f 1 Strategy 1 and strategy 2 7 5.83 2 Strategy 1 and strategy 3 6 5 3 Strategy 1 and strategy 4 3 2.5 4 Strategy 1 and strategy 5 1 0.83 5 Strategy 1 and strategy 6 3 2.5 6 Strategy 2 and strategy 3 6 5 7 Strategy 2 and strategy 4 44 36.67 8 Strategy 2 and strategy 5 13 10.83 9 Strategy 2 and strategy 6 9 7.5 10 Strategy 3 and strategy 4 1 0.83 11 Strategy 3 and strategy 5 1 0.83 12 Strategy 3 and strategy 6 1 0.83 13 Strategy 4 and strategy 5 9 7.5 14 Strategy 4 and strategy 6 7 5.83 15 Strategy 5 and strategy 6 4 3.33 16 Strategy 1 and other strategy 2 1.67 17 Strategy 4 and other strategy 3 2.5 Besides the highest and the lowest frequency which imply the most used and the least used strategies, there are also other strategies which are considered as minor strategies in this category. The percentage of those strategies is only less than 10; only one combination of strategy 2 and strategy 5 which touches slightly above 10 10.83. The combination involves strategy 2 as one of major strategies in the previous categorization. If the findings are analyzed more carefully, the frequency of other combinations which have a little high percentage compared to the lowest frequency – 0.83 also include strategy 2 and strategy 4 such as the combination of strategy 1 and strategy 2 5.83, strategy 2 and strategy 3 5, strategy 2 and strategy 6 7.5, strategy 4 and strategy 5 7.5, and also strategy 4 and strategy 6 5.83. The amount s of combinations represent that by combining two strategies, semester four students hope that it can 74 help them to process the actual meanings of English idioms. Logically, if using one strategy does not effectively to get the intended meanings, then using two strategies at once might be more helpful. Other noticable findings are the combinations which involve stratgey 1 - there are six combinations out of 17 combinations. Although the frequency is not that high, strategy 1 is often used as the complement. The fact that mother language interferes foreign language in the students’ learning process has become major issue in the language learning. Therefore, the results of this study supports the idea of contrastive analysis. It cannot be ignored that people’s first language will always influence them in learning a new language Ellis, 2004, p. 6. People often try to compare the characteristics of their first language and the new language. Consequently, sometimes it can help them to enhance their knowledge in the target language if both the first and the foreign language share the same characteristics, but it also leads people to errors and mistakes. Some of the participants tried to use their background knowledge of their first language in order to reveal the meanings of English idioms. The participants tried to either find the similarities in their first language or find the equivalence of the English idioms in their mother tongue. However, the participants did not apply to all English idioms because not all idioms have similarities or equivalence in their mother tongue. The interference happens in comprehending English idioms. Some of the interviewees even said that they sometimes tried to find the equivalence of the similarity of the English idioms to the idioms in their mother tongue. If the idioms 75 share the same characteristics or have similarity with the first language then the strategy will be helpful, such as in no smoke without fire. In Bahasa Indonesia, there is the equivalence of the idiom: tidak ada asap tanpa api. In this case, using the knowledge of the first language will be useful because the strategy leads to the same intended meaning. However, for the idiom like a piece of cake, there is no the equivalence of it in Bahasa Indonesia. Unlike in no smoke without fire which can be “translated’ to find the equivalence, in a piece of cake, people cannot do it to find the equivalence in Bahasa Indonesia. Indonesian people usually use the idiom: seperti membalikkan telapak tangan to refer to extremely easy. Those example show that sometimes using knowledge of the first language can be useful but sometimes cannot. The next discussion will deal with the combination of using three strategies see table 4.4 and four or more strategies see table 4.5. Basically, the reason for using the combinations of some strategies is to help the students to acquire the intended meanings of English idioms. Logically, the more strategies used by the students, the more the meanings can be revealed. When one strategy cannot reveal the meaning of an idiom, then using two, three, or more strategies maybe can help the participants. It is a reasonable opinion because the findings of the survey also show the same idea. Many participants used three even more strategies in acquiring the intended meanings. There are 19 combinations of using three strategies and 12 combinations of using four and more strategies. The following tables, table 4.4 and table 4.5, show the frequency and the distribution. 76 Table 4.4 Frequency of Using Three Strategies No. Strategies Frequency Relative Frequency f 1 Strategy 1, strategy 2, and strategy 3 1 1.67 2 Strategy 1, strategy 2, and strategy 4 3 5 3 Strategy 1, strategy 2, and strategy 6 1 1.67 4 Strategy 1, strategy 3, and strategy 4 1 1.67 5 Strategy 1, strategy 3, and strategy 5 1 1.67 6 Strategy 1, strategy 3, and strategy 6 1 1.67 7 Strategy 1, strategy 4, and strategy 5 1 1.67 8 Strategy 1, strategy 5, and strategy 6 2 3.33 9 Strategy 2, strategy 3, and strategy 4 5 8.33 10 Strategy 2, strategy 3, and strategy 6 1 1.67 11 Strategy 2, strategy 4, and strategy 5 14 23.33 12 Strategy 2, strategy 4, and strategy 6 12 20 13 Strategy 3, strategy 4, and strategy 5 2 3.33 14 Strategy 4, strategy 5, and strategy 6 1 1.67 15 Strategy 1, strategy 2, and other strategy 2 3.33 16 Strategy 2, strategy 4, and other strategy 9 15 17 Strategy 2, strategy 6, and other strategy 1 1.67 18 Strategy 3, strategy 4, and other strategy 1 1.67 19 Strategy 4, strategy 5, and other strategy 1 1.67 Similar to the results of the previous tables, table 4.4 also displays the frequency of using certain strategies in a classification. In this section, the researcher categorizes the strategies into using combination of three strategies. The results show that the combination which reaches the highest position and also becomes the major strategy in this category consisting of strategy 2 and strategy four in the previous discussion they become major strategies both in using a single strategy or using combination of two strategies – the combination of strategy 2, strategy 4, and strategy 5 23.33. The outcome is interesting because the students involved strategy 5 in the combination. Strategy 5 assigns the participants to focus on certain words in an idiom because somehow the word will carry the intended meaning of the idiom itself, such as in rain cats and dogs. By focusing on the word rain, the actual 77 meaning of the idiom can be revealed because it is related to rain: rain very hard. The first thing to do is thinking of the word which seems to convey the intended meaning and then try to relate the word to other words which compose the idiom. In this case, the other words are cat and dog. By having some analyses on the words, for example, cat and dog like to fight al lot, and relate to the word rain, and then the meaning can be acquired. Although not all English idioms can adopt this strategy, it is affective to be applied to certain English idioms. The fact that strategy 5 is effective for certain English idioms is also supported by one of the interviewees in this investigation. When the researcher asked him about the strategies that he usually used to comprehend the meanings of English idioms, he admitted that by focusing on certain words in the idioms, it would helped him to acquire the meanings. He added that somehow the meanings of the idioms were conveyed in the words. In other words, certain words in the idioms are the key of the intended meanings. He also confessed that sometimes he used this strategy because according to him it was one of the effective strategy to reveal the meanings of English idioms. Having analyzed table 4.5, the researcher also sees that there is another combination of three strategies which is in the second position and it goes to the combination of strategy 2, strategy 4 and strategy 6 20. It is considered as a high percentage because the gap between the highest is not that far, only 3.33. While the major combination involved strategy 5 besides strategy 2 and strategy 4, in the second rank, it includes strategy 6 which allows relating one word to another word which composes an idiom to reveal the actual meaning. In third 78 position, there is the combination of strategy 2, strategy 4 and other strategies which touches 15. This combination still included strategy 2 and strategy 4 like the previous combinations. However, it uses other strategy as the complement to comprehend the meanings of English idioms. The rest of the combinations do not show big frequency. They even cannot touch 8, except for the combination of strategy 2, strategy 3, and strategy 4 which achieves slightly above: 8.33. In this classification – using combination of three strategies – there are 11 combinations which are in the lowest rank. They only accomplish 1.67 and occur once. Not only using the combination of three strategies, the participants in this study also tried to use the combination of four strategies even more than four strategies. The idea beyond this choice is to help them to acquire the intended meanings of the English idioms. As it has been explained in Chapter 2, idioms have their special characteristics that even no word can replace the position of certain words in the idioms McMordie, 1909, p. 6. Moreover, if people try to do so, the idioms will be no longer idioms and the meanings will be totally different from what they refer to. In addition, no matter how hard people try to create idioms, it will be very difficult even it might be impossible because idioms are not something which can be created spontaneously. It needs a long process. Therefore, it is not easy to create and comprehend the meanings of certain idioms. English idioms are indeed difficult especially for non-native English speakers, including semester four students of ELESP. Idioms are different from any other aspects of English. It needs more effort to learn idioms and especially to 79 acquire the actual meanings. Therefore, certain strategies are used to help non- native English speakers to reveal the intended meanings. In table 4.5, the researcher is trying to explain the phenomena of using the combination of four strategies even more strategies. There are 10 combinations of using four strategies, one combination of using five strategies, and one combination of using six strategies. However, the frequency shared by those combinations is not that different. Table 4.5 Frequency of Using Four and More Strategies No. Strategies Frequency Relative Frequency f 1 Strategy 1, strategy 2, strategy 3, and strategy 4 1 6.25 2 Strategy 1, strategy 2, strategy 5, and strategy 6 1 6.25 3 Strategy 2, strategy 3, strategy 4, and strategy 5 1 6.25 4 Strategy 2, strategy 3, strategy 4, and strategy 6 2 12.5 5 Strategy 2, strategy 3, strategy 5, and strategy 6 3 18.75 6 Strategy 1, strategy 2, strategy 4, and other strategy 1 6.25 7 Strategy 1, strategy 2, strategy 5, and other strategy 1 6.25 8 Strategy 2, strategy 4, strategy 5, and other strategy 1 6.25 9 Strategy 2, strategy 4, strategy 6, and other strategy 1 6.25 10 Strategy 2, strategy 5, strategy 6, and other strategy 1 6.25 11 Strategy 2, strategy 4, strategy 5, strategy 6, and other strategy 1 6.25 12 Strategy 1, strategy 2, strategy 3, strategy 4, strategy 5, strategy 6 2 12.5 Having seen table 4.5, it can be inferred that the combination of strategy 2, strategy 3, strategy 5, and strategy 6 achieves the highest position 18.75; followed by the combination of strategy 2, strategy 3, strategy 4, and strategy 6 12.5 and the combination of strategy 1, strategy 2, strategy 3, strategy 4, 80 strategy 5, strategy 6 12.5. The other nine combinations have the same percentage 6.25. The major strategy in this category again involves strategy 2. However, since the other strategies which compose this major strategy – strategy 4 and strategy 6 – have been discussed, the researcher is going to explain how strategy 3 can help the students to acquire the intended meanings of English idioms. Principally, strategy 3 assigns people to translate the idioms into another language to help them to reveal the actual meanings. When people encounter an idiom an eye for an eye, for example, they can make use of strategy 3 to process the meaning. By translating it directly see chapter 2 and making some necessary changes modified literal translation, the meaning can be acquired easier: mata dibayar mata. By translating the idiom into the mother tongue, people can have higher access to get the intended meaning because people have better understanding and knowledge on their mother tongue than the foreign language. The result of the translation is mata dibayar mata or it can be called as the literal meaning of the idiom. However, people still have to try to find the figurative or the intended meaning of the idioms. By using the literal meaning, then the intended meaning can be acquired: retaliation of an equal ferocity see appendix 1. The results shown in table 4.5 also imply that some of the participants were really not familiar with the English idioms in the questionnaire. It means that it has relation with the degree of familiarity. In the previous chapter 2, the researcher has explained about the degree of familiarity as one of the influencing 81 factors in comprehending idioms. The familiarity of English idioms plays an important role in comprehending the idioms. When people are familiar with certain idioms, it will be easier for them to acquire the meanings. Because they are already accustomed to using or hearing the idioms, subconsciously, they will directly know the meanings of idioms. However, the degree of familiarity from one person is different from another person, because people have different experiences in encountering certain English idioms. However, the point is the that degree of familiarity is one of important aspects that influence people in comprehending English idioms. Therefore, the unfamiliarity of the English idioms becomes one of the triggers why the students tried to use the combinations of some strategies to acquire the intended meanings. To encourage the readers to have better understanding on the distribution of the combinations, the researcher also presents the results in a bar chart, figure 4.2. By analyzing the bars in the chart, it can been that there are three bars which are longer than other bars. They show that the combinations of strategies depicted in the bars are used more by the participants compared to other combinations, while the rest bars have the same length 6.25. If the results are connected to the frequency shown in the table 4.5, the combinations of the strategies are only used once by the respondents. And from the chart, it can be seen clearly that there are three combinations which become the major combinations in this category - using combination of four, five, and six strategies. Moreover, it can also be said that the gap between the highest and the lowest is quite far 10.50. The following is figure 4.2 which shows obviously the results of in this classification: 82

4.2 Frequency of Using Four and More Strategies Chart

Besides discussing the frequency of the strategies separately, the researcher also explains the frequency shared by all the strategies in one table. The purpose is to be able to draw some conclusions which strategy is used more by the ELESP students: using only one strategy, using combination of two strategies, using combination of three strategies, or using combination of four even more strategies. By doing so, it will enable the researcher to determine among those categorizations, which type will be the major strategies used to process the intended meanings of English idioms by semester four students of ELESP. Moreover, the researcher will also discuss some other factors which might influence the results. As it has been explained in the theoretical framework see chapter 2, theories about the classifications of idioms and about the types of idioms will be the supporting theories to convince the findings in this research. The following, table 4.6, displays the results: 83 Table 4.6 Frequency of All Strategies No. Strategies Frequency Relative Frequency f 1 Strategy 1 16 3.97 2 Strategy 2 98 24.32 3 Strategy 3 10 2.48 4 Strategy 4 48 11.91 5 Strategy 5 11 2.73 6 Strategy 6 10 2.48 7 Other strategies 14 3.47 8 Strategy 1 and strategy 2 7 1.74 9 Strategy 1 and strategy 3 6 0.99 10 Strategy 1 and strategy 4 3 0.74 11 Strategy 1 and strategy 5 1 0.25 12 Strategy 1 and strategy 6 3 0.74 13 Strategy 2 and strategy 3 6 1.49 14 Strategy 2 and strategy 4 44 10.92 15 Strategy 2 and strategy 5 13 3.23 16 Strategy 2 and strategy 6 9 2.23 17 Strategy 3 and strategy 4 1 0.25 18 Strategy 3 and strategy 5 1 0.25 19 Strategy 3 and strategy 6 1 0.25 20 Strategy 4 and strategy 5 9 2.23 21 Strategy 4 and strategy 6 7 1.74 22 Strategy 5 and strategy 6 4 0.99 23 Strategy 1 and other strategy 2 0.50 24 Strategy 4 and other strategy 3 0.74 25 Strategy 1, strategy 2, and strategy 3 1 0.25 26 Strategy 1, strategy 2, and strategy 4 3 0.74 27 Strategy 1, strategy 2, and strategy 6 1 0.25 28 Strategy 1, strategy 3, and strategy 4 1 0.25 29 Strategy 1, strategy 3, and strategy 5 1 0.25 30 Strategy 1, strategy 3, and strategy 6 1 0.25 31 Strategy 1, strategy 4, and strategy 5 1 0.25 32 Strategy 1, strategy 5, and strategy 6 2 0.50 33 Strategy 2, strategy 3, and strategy 4 5 1.24 34 Strategy 2, strategy 3, and strategy 6 1 0.25 35 Strategy 2, strategy 4, and strategy 5 14 3.47 36 Strategy 2, strategy 4, and strategy 6 12 2.98 37 Strategy 3, strategy 4, and strategy 5 2 0.50 38 Strategy 4, strategy 5, and strategy 6 1 0.25 39 Strategy 1, strategy 2, and other strategy 2 0.50 40 Strategy 2, strategy 4, and other strategy 9 2.23 41 Strategy 2, strategy 6, and other strategy 1 0.25 42 Strategy 3, strategy 4, and other strategy 1 0.25 43 Strategy 4, strategy 5, and other strategy 1 0.25 44 Strategy 1, strategy 2, strategy 3, and strategy 4 1 0.25 45 Strategy 1, strategy 2, strategy 5, and strategy 6 1 0.25 46 Strategy 2, strategy 3, strategy 4, and strategy 5 1 0.25 84 No. Strategies Frequency Relative Frequency f 47 Strategy 2, strategy 3, strategy 4, and strategy 6 2 0.50 48 Strategy 2, strategy 3, strategy 5, and strategy 6 3 0.74 49 Strategy 1, strategy 2, strategy 4, and other strategy 1 0.25 50 Strategy 1, strategy 2, strategy 5, and other strategy 1 0.25 51 Strategy 2, strategy 4, strategy 5, and other strategy 1 0.25 52 Strategy 2, strategy 4, strategy 6, and other strategy 1 0.25 53 Strategy 2, strategy 5, strategy 6, and other strategy 1 0.25 54 Strategy 2, strategy 4, strategy 5, strategy 6, and other strategy 1 0.25 55 Strategy 1, strategy 2, strategy 3, strategy 4, strategy 5, strategy 6 2 0.50 Having counted all the frequency of the strategies in one table, table 4.6, the researcher concludes that there are there strategies from two different categories which become the major strategies used by semester four students of ELESP to process the actual meanings of English idioms. It is proved by the results shown in table 4.6. Strategy 2 reaches the highest percentage 24.32 followed by strategy 4 11.91 in using only single-strategy category, In using combination of two strategies, the combination of stratgey 2 and strategy 4 achieves the third position 10.92. The rest of the strategies do not show significant results because their percentage is only below 10. Even some strategies which are in the lowest position - used least by the students, only accomplish 0.25. Hence, another conclusion is drawn: The semester four students of ELESP prefer using a single strategy and using combination of two strategies to using combination of three or more strategies. 85 The results show that context and mental imagination are considered important to help the students to acquire the intended meanings of English idioms. It is indicated by the fact that strategy 2, strategy 4 or even the combination of strategy 2 and strategy 4 turn out to be the major strategies used by the students. It has been clarified in the previous discussion that context where idioms take place and the ability to make some image representations of English idioms are some of the essential factors in determining the success of acquiring the actual meanings of English idioms. However, it should be realized that there are also other factors which can influence the success of accomplishing the intended meanings of idioms besides the strategies used in the process, such as the characteristics shared by the idioms: classification of idioms and also types of idioms see chapter 2. Discussing the categorization of idioms, it will bring further to pure idioms, semi- idioms, and literal idioms - the grouping is based on the words which compose the idioms. Similar to idioms with low transparency, pure idioms are composed by words the meanings of which have nothing to do with the meanings of the idioms. Therefore, to process the meanings, people have to be familiar with the idioms, unless the meanings cannot be acquired Fernando, 1996, p. 35. Pure idioms force people not to focus on the idioms because there is insufficient information carried by the idioms to convey the actual meanings. Unless people know the conventionalized meanings, they have to find a strategy to reveal the meanings, especially for non-native English speakers. In the example draw the long bow, the meaning of the idiom has nothing to do with word bow. The idiom means 86 exaggerate. It is hard to process the meaning of the idiom if people do not know the idiom before. Therefore, for English idioms which belong to pure idioms, people will use context to process the meanings. No matter how unfamiliar pure idioms are, context will always give some information for the readers and the hearers to reveal the meanings. Another strategy which might be used is creating some imaginations based on the words see chapter 2 - DCT. By activating the systems used to process both verbal and nonverbal objects, it can help people to find the intended meanings of idioms. Different from processing the meanings of pure idioms, revealing the meanings of semi-idioms is easier. Semi-idioms are idioms which consist of literal and non-literal words see Chapter 2. Because of their characteristics, people may use a strategy like focusing on the literal words to acquire the meanings of idioms, such as in break the record. By focusing on the word record, people will be able to guess the meaning because the meaning has something to do with the record: to do something that has not been done before. Strategy like direct translation can also be used to comprehend this idiom. By directly translating the semi-idioms and trying to relate the meaning between one word to another word, people will be able to guess the intended meanings. The next type of idioms is literal idioms. They are called literal idioms because they are noticeable see Chapter 2 – the words which compose the idioms are easily recognized and often used in daily conversations. Literal idioms have strong relation with degree of familiarity. Actually for non-native English speakers who are able to speak English, they are familiar with these idioms. 87 However, sometimes they do not know that certain expressions they use in their conversations actually belong to literal idioms such as on foot and on the other hand . Therefore, it is the easiest category to process because the meanings are already conventionalized. It is stated that categorization of idioms is one of the minor influencing factors in comprehending idioms. The logic is when people know that certain idioms belong to a certain category; they will be able to know which strategies that can be used to reveal the meanings. Although it does not usually go that way, somehow, it is helpful. The other minor influencing aspect which will be discussed here is types of idioms. Seild and McMordie divide the idioms into seven major types see chapter 2, namely, pairs of adjectives e.g. black and blue, pairs of nouns e.g. skin and bone, collective noun phrases e.g. a flock of sheep, compound adjectives e.g. nine-to-five, adjectives + noun phrases e.g. flying colors, noun phrases e.g. the apple of one’s eye, and proper names made up of an adjectives and a noun e.g. the Eternal City. This factor is also considered helpful when people know whether certain phrases belong to one this type or not. When they are able to distinguish, then they can treat the phrases well. If the know the phrases belong to one of this types of idioms, hence, in acquiring the meaning they will use a certain strategy so that the intended meanings can be revealed correctly. Idioms are indeed difficult for non-native English speakers because they have fixed meanings which sometimes cannot be guessed directly. They need more understanding to process the meanings of English idioms. Therefore, many 88 strategies emerge regarding the process of revealing the meanings of idioms. Actually, any strategy is acceptable as long as it can help people to comprehend the intended meanings. However, people have to realize that different idioms need different strategies. By understanding the characteristics shared by English idioms, it will help people to acquire the actual meanings. It is like understanding the need of something. When the need is fulfilled, then the success can be achieved. Therefore, the ability to recognize the appropriate strategies to be used to reveal the meanings of certain idioms is highly needed. Not only recognizing but also using the strategies effectively is also required to find the actual meanings of English idioms. To conclude this section, the researcher wants to deduce that principally, there are three major categories which are used to process the intended meanings of English idioms by semester four students of ELESP. Those three main strategies are from two different categories, namely, strategy 2, strategy 4, and the combination of strategy 2 and strategy 4. These findings are supported by the results of the second interview. Most of the interviewees said that the role of contexts in comprehending the intended meanings of English idioms was significant. Contexts help people to know the messages which are conveyed by the idioms in the sentences. When people already know the context, then creating imagination about the situation of the sentences is the next step which is usually taken. Therefore, they also admitted that using a certain combination of some strategies to reveal the intended meanings of English idioms is more effective than only using a single strategy. Moreover, they also added that the existence of those 89 strategies would help the students, especially ELESP students to comprehend English idioms. To explore more the effectiveness of those strategies in helping the students to acquire the intended meanings of English idioms, in the following section, the researcher provides the data and discusses the findings.

B. The Effectiveness of the Strategies