The Role of Literal Features During Processing of Novel Verbal Metaphors
When a word is used metaphorically (for example “walrus” in the sentence “The president is a walrus”), some features of that word's meaning (“very fat,” “slow-moving”) are carried across to the metaphoric interpretation while other features (“has large tusks,” “lives near the north pole”) are n...
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ftdatacite:10.18452/22584 2023-05-15T17:39:57+02:00 The Role of Literal Features During Processing of Novel Verbal Metaphors Ronderos, Camilo R. Guerra, Ernesto Knoeferle, Pia 2021 https://dx.doi.org/10.18452/22584 https://edoc.hu-berlin.de/handle/18452/23208 en eng Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Attribution 4.0 International https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode cc-by-4.0 CC-BY verbal metaphors eye-tracking experimental pragmatics figurative language comprehension metaphor processing 150 Psychologie Text article article-journal ScholarlyArticle 2021 ftdatacite https://doi.org/10.18452/22584 2021-11-05T12:55:41Z When a word is used metaphorically (for example “walrus” in the sentence “The president is a walrus”), some features of that word's meaning (“very fat,” “slow-moving”) are carried across to the metaphoric interpretation while other features (“has large tusks,” “lives near the north pole”) are not. What happens to these features that relate only to the literal meaning during processing of novel metaphors? In four experiments, the present study examined the role of the feature of physical containment during processing of verbs of physical containment. That feature is used metaphorically to signify difficulty, such as “fenced in” in the sentence “the journalist's opinion was fenced in after the change in regime.” Results of a lexical decision task showed that video clips displaying a ball being trapped by a box facilitated comprehension of verbs of physical containment when the words were presented in isolation. However, when the verbs were embedded in sentences that rendered their interpretation metaphorical in a novel way, no such facilitation was found, as evidenced by two eye-tracking reading studies. We interpret this as suggesting that features that are critical for understanding the encoded meaning of verbs but are not part of the novel metaphoric interpretation are ignored during the construction of metaphorical meaning. Results and limitations of the paradigm are discussed in relation to previous findings in the literature both on metaphor comprehension and on the interaction between language comprehension and the visual world. Text North Pole walrus* DataCite Metadata Store (German National Library of Science and Technology) North Pole |
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DataCite Metadata Store (German National Library of Science and Technology) |
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English |
topic |
verbal metaphors eye-tracking experimental pragmatics figurative language comprehension metaphor processing 150 Psychologie |
spellingShingle |
verbal metaphors eye-tracking experimental pragmatics figurative language comprehension metaphor processing 150 Psychologie Ronderos, Camilo R. Guerra, Ernesto Knoeferle, Pia The Role of Literal Features During Processing of Novel Verbal Metaphors |
topic_facet |
verbal metaphors eye-tracking experimental pragmatics figurative language comprehension metaphor processing 150 Psychologie |
description |
When a word is used metaphorically (for example “walrus” in the sentence “The president is a walrus”), some features of that word's meaning (“very fat,” “slow-moving”) are carried across to the metaphoric interpretation while other features (“has large tusks,” “lives near the north pole”) are not. What happens to these features that relate only to the literal meaning during processing of novel metaphors? In four experiments, the present study examined the role of the feature of physical containment during processing of verbs of physical containment. That feature is used metaphorically to signify difficulty, such as “fenced in” in the sentence “the journalist's opinion was fenced in after the change in regime.” Results of a lexical decision task showed that video clips displaying a ball being trapped by a box facilitated comprehension of verbs of physical containment when the words were presented in isolation. However, when the verbs were embedded in sentences that rendered their interpretation metaphorical in a novel way, no such facilitation was found, as evidenced by two eye-tracking reading studies. We interpret this as suggesting that features that are critical for understanding the encoded meaning of verbs but are not part of the novel metaphoric interpretation are ignored during the construction of metaphorical meaning. Results and limitations of the paradigm are discussed in relation to previous findings in the literature both on metaphor comprehension and on the interaction between language comprehension and the visual world. |
format |
Text |
author |
Ronderos, Camilo R. Guerra, Ernesto Knoeferle, Pia |
author_facet |
Ronderos, Camilo R. Guerra, Ernesto Knoeferle, Pia |
author_sort |
Ronderos, Camilo R. |
title |
The Role of Literal Features During Processing of Novel Verbal Metaphors |
title_short |
The Role of Literal Features During Processing of Novel Verbal Metaphors |
title_full |
The Role of Literal Features During Processing of Novel Verbal Metaphors |
title_fullStr |
The Role of Literal Features During Processing of Novel Verbal Metaphors |
title_full_unstemmed |
The Role of Literal Features During Processing of Novel Verbal Metaphors |
title_sort |
role of literal features during processing of novel verbal metaphors |
publisher |
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin |
publishDate |
2021 |
url |
https://dx.doi.org/10.18452/22584 https://edoc.hu-berlin.de/handle/18452/23208 |
geographic |
North Pole |
geographic_facet |
North Pole |
genre |
North Pole walrus* |
genre_facet |
North Pole walrus* |
op_rights |
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Attribution 4.0 International https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode cc-by-4.0 |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.18452/22584 |
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1766140712850554880 |