Students Awareness of the Semantic Differences among Surprise Expressions in English

This study is designed to examine two hypotheses that question: (1) whether or not Iraqi Learners of EFL have the level of proficiency in English that enables them to be aware of the semantic differences among surprise expressions. (2) Whether or not the context, i.e. the event prompting surprise emotion, helps the learners to be aware of the exact meaning of a certain surprise expression. To test the validity of these hypotheses, an experimental design involving a search process for the correct surprise expression candidate has been used. It has been found that neither the context nor the learners’ level of proficiency in English is of any advantage in arriving at an adequate understanding of the expressions used to communicate surprise emotions.