The passive paremiological competence of university students with advanced mother tongue and foreign language proficiency: a case study

In this paper, we present the results of a case study that was carried out in order to evaluate the passive paremiological competence of university learners with advanced mother tongue and foreign language proficiency. In doing so, 10 Spanish paremias and 10 French paremias characterised by differing degrees of frequency of use, idiomaticity and opacity were selected. Along these lines, we designed a questionnaire that was completed by a group of 20 university students with Spanish and French considered as their mother tongue and their foreign language, respectively. In this case, passive paremiological competence is directly related to age (the competence of the youngest is significantly lower than that of the oldest), to the frequency of use of the mother tongue and to the degree of idiomaticity and opacity in the foreign language. Finally, it should be noted that passive paremiological competence in the foreign language is significantly lower than in the mother tongue.