Effects of semantic compositionally in the interpretation of phraseological units in a second language

ABSTRACT This paper presents the results of a study on the influence of semantic compositionality on the interpretation of phraseological units (PU) in undergraduate students of Italian as a foreign language, and its similarity to the processes of interpretation in their native language. The data obtained indicate that semantic compositionality is a factor that favours the interpretation of PU in the foreign language. However, the data also show that students tend to prefer the intercultural strategy for the interpretation of transparent PU, which leads to a high rate of interpretation errors.