A dynamic model of metaphor comprehension- inspired from two cross-cultural web-based empirical studies on metaphor comprehension

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.