Investigating Iraqi EFL learners’ comprehension of some senses of the word ‘Sight’

Abstract EN

In light of cognitive semantics, meaning extension in a language is actually a reflection of its natives’ modes of thinking.

The different ways of thinking set different correlations between the word’s referent and both the interlocutors’ inner world and the outside world and hence produce distinct senses for that word.

It is then essential for the EFL learners to acquire the natives’ modes of thinking in order to be able of getting the list of meanings related to each lexical item in the target language.

After reviewing the conceptual process involved in meaning construction, the researcher tries to investigate EFL learners’ comprehension of some senses of the word ‘sight’ in a set of sentences.

The qualitative analysis of the subjects’ responses shows that the non-native like thinking which involves un-natural conceptual decoding, shift in domains, and miscorrelation are the main causes of the subjects’ poor comprehension.

Cognitive semantics, meaning extension, conceptualization, sight, metaphor, metonymy, mode of thinking, correlations, comprehension.