On my mind: thoughts about salience, context and figurative language from a second language perspective

Istvan Kecskes (1)

1 SUNY - State University of New York

This article discusses three claims of the Graded Salience Hypothesis presented in Rachel Giora's book . It is argued that these claims may give second language researchers the chance to revise the way they think about word meaning, the literal meaning-figurative meaning dichotomy and the role of context in language processing. Giora's arguments are related to recent second language research and their relevance is explained through examples. There are also several suggestions made for further research.

Mots clés: Social Sciences & Humanities

Istvan Kecskes. On my mind: thoughts about salience, context and figurative language from a second language perspective. Second Language Research, 2006, 22 (2), pp.219-237. ⟨10.1191/0267658306sr266ra⟩. ⟨hal-00572099⟩