In the present study, we developed affective (valence and arousal) and sensory–motor (concreteness and imageability) norms for 210 English idioms rated by native English speakers (L1) and English second-language speakers (L2). Based on internal consistency analyses, the ratings were found to be highly reliable. Furthermore, we explored various relations within the collected measures (valence, arousal, concreteness, and imageability) and between these measures and some available psycholinguistic norms (familiarity, literal plausibility, and decomposability) for the same set of idioms. The primary findings were that (i) valence and arousal showed the typical U-shape relation, for both L1 and L2 data; (ii) idioms with more negative valence were rated as more arousing; (iii) the majority of idioms were rated as either positive or negative with only 4 being rated as neutral; (iv) familiarity correlated positively with valence and arousal; (v) concreteness and imageability showed a strong positive correlation; and (vi) the ratings of L1 and L2 speakers significantly differed for arousal and concreteness, but not for valence and imageability. We discuss our interpretation of these observations with reference to the literature on figurative language processing (both single words and idioms).

在本研究中，我们针对 210 个英语习语制定了情感（价和唤醒）和感觉运动（具体性和形象性）规范，并由英语母语者 (L1) 和英语第二语言者 (L2) 进行评分。根据内部一致性分析，发现评级高度可靠。此外，我们还探讨了所收集的衡量标准（效价、唤醒度、具体性和形象性）内的各种关系，以及这些衡量标准与同一组习语的一些可用的心理语言学规范（熟悉度、字面合理性和可分解性）之间的各种关系。主要发现是 (i) 对于 L1 和 L2 数据，效价和唤醒度显示出典型的 U 形关系；(ii) 具有更多负价的习语被认为更令人兴奋；(iii) 大多数习语被评为正面或负面，只有 4 个被评为中性；(iv) 熟悉度与效价和唤醒度呈正相关；(v)具体性和形象性表现出很强的正相关性；(vi) L1 和 L2 说话者的评分在唤醒度和具体性方面存在显着差异，但在效价和形象性方面没有显着差异。我们参考比喻语言处理（单个单词和习语）的文献来讨论我们对这些观察结果的解释。