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A dynamic model of metaphor comprehension- inspired from two cross-cultural web-based empirical studies on metaphor comprehension
Author(s)
Date Issued
2008
Citation
Zhou, D., & Heineken, Edgar (2008 May 30). A dynamic model of metaphor comprehension- inspired from two cross-cultural web-based empirical studies on metaphor comprehension. RaAM7, Cáceres, Spain.
Type
Conference Paper
Abstract
There are abundant cognitive theories which can be applied to explaining metaphor
comprehension, including the conceptual metaphor theory (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980),
the salience imbalance theory (Ortony, 1979), structure mapping theory (Gentner,
1983), the domain-interaction theory (Tourangeau and Sternberg, 1982), the attributive
categorization theory (Glucksberg & Keysar, 1990), the conceptual blending theory
(Fauconnier & Turner, 1998, 2002), and etc. Recently, Bowler and Gentner (2005)’s
career of metaphor hypothesis suggests that less conventional metaphors are more likely
to involve processing of comparison while conventional metaphors are apt to be
processed through categorization. In the author’s opinion, how conventional and apt a
metaphor is estimated by a person and in which context the metaphor is provided
largely influence the cognitive process he or she takes in comprehending the metaphor.
In order to test the hypothesis, two cross-cultural web-based studies are carried out. The
primary objective of the study I is to measure how the concepts teacher, candle, captain
and shepherd are generally understood by the Chinese and the German participants. In
study II, both the Chinese and the German participants are asked to comprehend three
teacher metaphors in different context (no communicative scenario, communicative
scenario with positive feedback or communicative scenario with negative feedback).
The three teacher metaphors include “the teacher is a candle”, which is estimated by the
Chinese subjects as the most conventional and apt teacher metaphor but by the German
as a less conventional and less apt teacher metaphor, “the teacher is a shepherd”, a
metaphor estimated by the German as the most conventional and apt teacher metaphor,
but by the Chinese as a less conventional and less apt metaphor, “the teacher is a
captain”, a metaphor estimated by both Chinese and German as a less conventional but
apt teacher metaphor. Altogether 240 complete valid data sets were collected from those
studies, which involve 480 participants from two German universities and two Chinese
universities. The results obtained from the self-assessment manikin (Lang, 1980), and
the cluster analysis and the network analysis of the features suitability estimation reveal
the dynamic nature of metaphor comprehension. Inspired by Cowan (2005)’s theory on
attention and working memory and the relevance theory (Wilson & Sperber, 2004), a
dynamic view of metaphor comprehension is presented.
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