The role of reticence in language learners' comprehension of metaphorical taboo expressions

Suner Munoz, Ferran [UCL] De Cock, Barbara [UCL]

The present study focuses on the influence of L2 learners’ attitude towards and perception of sexual taboo expressions 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.