A multimodal approach to polysemy: the senses of taste and smell

Idiomatic expressions are widely used as one of figurative languages when people sensed that idiom contained more than its surface meaning. For a long time, researchers have done a lot of work studying the mechanism of processing idioms, and two models were proposed: noncompositional model and compositional model. Those two models, however, can only explain one aspect of processing idioms. Therefore, hybrid model (Cutting Bock, 1997) came into being in explaning how people process idioms: top-down process and bottom-up process co-exist. Compositionality was introduced in psycholinguistics by Gibbs and his colleagues (Gibbs, Nayak, Cutting, 1989), and later developed into the so-called idiom semantic decomposition hypothesis, which made great contribution to generating hybrid model. According to this view, idioms are at least partly decomposable, and speakers have shared intuitions about how the meanings of the parts contribute to the idiomatic meaning. The degree of analyzability determines the access of idioms’ figarative meaning. During recent years, semantic analyzability has become very popular among psycholinguists, and the claims of the idiom semantic decomposition hypothesis are now widely accepted (Libben Titone, 2008). Some questions remain unsettled, however, including: (1) whether semantic decomposability affects understanding idioms independently; (2) if so, how semantic decomposability affects it; (3) whether semantic decomposition hypothesis is suitable in processing Chinese modifier-noun structure; (4) which model can be applied in accessing Chinese three-character idioms.The present study tried to answer those questions by exploring semantic priming task to investigate how Chinese three-character idioms with verb-object structure and with modifier-noun structure were processed. We intended to reveal the role semantic decomposability played in processing idioms in early (SOA=300ms in Experiment 1) and later (SOA=800ms in Experiment 2) period. The results showed that semantic decomposability affected semantic activation independently. In early period, as to high decomposable idioms with verb-object structure and with modifier-noun structure, we found significant activation in their literal meanings; on the other hand, in later period, as to low decomposable idioms with modifier-noun structure, we found significant accuracy in activating literal and figurative meanings. The results also showed that the degree of semantic decomposability resulted in different effects of semantic priming. In early period, as to low decomposable idioms with verb-object structure, we found significant activation in both literal and figurative meanings, and we found activation in literal meanings when idioms with verb-object structure and with modifier-noun structure were high decomposable. In later period, significant activation in both literal and figurative meanings was found in low decomposable idioms with verb-object structure. But significant activation in figurative meanings was only found in high decomposable idioms with modifier-noun structure. These results supported the notion that semantic decomposability plays a role in processing idioms in early period; while in later period, as to high decomposable idioms with verb-object structure, the simultaneous activation of literal and figuratvie meanings weakens the advantage of semantic priming. So we made conclusions that (1) semantic decomposability independently affects understanding idioms; (2) figurative meanings are activated more easily when idioms are low semantic decomposable; whereas literal meanings tend to be easily activated when idioms are high semantic decomposable; (3) the privilege of activation in literal meaning exists in processing idioms. All those results partly support the Graded Salience Hypothesis and hybrid hypothesis.

On understanding familiar and less-familiar figurative language

One of the most challenging parts of learning a foreign/second language is vocabulary, and perhaps the most difficult part of the vocabulary for EFL learners is learning both literal and figurative meanings of idioms. This study was an attempt to find out how EFL learners make a mental image of English idioms as compared with native English speakers. For this purpose two hypotheses were formulated as: 1) prior knowledge of an idiomatic phrase figurative meaning does not influence the mental image of native (American) and non-native (Iranian) English speakers based on phrase's literal meaning, and 2) nonliteral interpretation of figurative phrases does not help native (American) and non-native (Iranian) English speakers conceptualize the literal meanings of idiomatic expressions.After the data analysis the following results were obtained: 1) prior knowledge of an idiomatic phrase figurative meaning can influence the mental image of native English speakers and native Persian speakers based on phrase's literal meaning, and 2) nonliteral interpretation of figurative phrases is not effective in terms of conceptualizing the literal meaning of idiomatic phrases neither for Persian speakers nor for English speakers. The results of this study can be beneficial for L2 teachers and students as well as for material developers.

The chapter analyses the quality terms of Mandarin Chinese which belong to the semantic domains of heavy and hard, as well as to the subdomains of surface texture (slippery, smooth, and level). We argue that the evidence from Mandarin Chinese accords with the larger typological picture which has been gleaned from languages that are areally and genetically distant from Chinese. This similarity is firstly observed in the literal meanings, which are discussed below for the subdomains of slippery, smooth, and level. Furthermore, the Mandarin data supports the existence of stable links between literal and figurative meanings. With data from the hard domain, we show that the oppositions between the lexemes’ literal meanings determine the results of their semantic shifts. Next, we examine evidence from the heavy domain to demonstrate that a reverse analysis can be applied to predict differences in literal meanings from the differences in metaphoric uses. The concluding sections of the chapter discuss how lexico-typological data can contribute to Chinese lexicology in general.

Ambiguous but canonical idioms (kick the bucket) are processed fast in both their figurative ("die") and literal ("boot the pail") senses, although processing costs associated with meaning integration may emerge in postidiom regions. Modified versions (the bucket was kicked) are processed more slowly than canonical configurations when intended figuratively. We hypothesized that modifications delay idiom recognition and prioritize the literal meaning, yielding processing costs when the context warrants a figurative interpretation. To test this, we designed an eye-tracking study, where passivized idioms were followed by "keywords" relating to their literal (bucket-water) or figurative (dead-body) meaning, or were incongruent (time). The remaining context was identical. The findings showed a facilitation for the literal meaning: keywords and passivized idioms in the literal condition were read significantly faster in go-past and total reading time, respectively, compared to both the figurative and control conditions. However, both literal and figurative keywords were processed equally fast (and significantly faster than controls) in total reading time. In support of our hypothesis, the literal meaning of passivized idioms appears to be more highly activated and easier to integrate, although the figurative meaning receives some activation that facilitates its (full) retrieval if necessary. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Yūsuf ibn Ḥusayn, a 15th century Ottoman ulama member, is known as al-Kirmāstī in reference to his hometown, Kirmasti, in the Bursa district. He attended Hocazade Muslihuddin’s classes. He taught in a number of madrasas, including Sahn-i Seman, and worked as a judge in Bursa and Istanbul. He penned many works in the fields of jurisprudence, theology, logic, and disputation. He contributed to the literature of rhetoric by writing foundational textbooks, including al-Tabyīn, al-Tibyān (al-Tabyīn’s commentary), al-Muntakhab (al-Tibyān’s abridgement), al-Mukhtār, and a gloss on al-Muṭawwal and al-Sayyid al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī’s al-Miṣbāḥ. Following al-Sakkākī, who treated the main disciplines of the science of rhetoric in a semantic unity, the works in this field evolved into the genre of commentaries and glosses, which examined issues in detail. After the 14th century, when the number of works of commentary and gloss increased, works related to rhetoric were viewed as unimportant and belonging to a period of intellectual decline. However, even if one does observe a foundational change in the science of rhetoric after al-Sakkākī, one cannot convincingly argue that commentaries and glosses on works of rhetoric were useless and unimportant. In this context, the tradition of commentaries-glosses was not a regurgitation of the main text but was instead a genre filled with contemporary discussions. The period during which al-Kirmāstī wrote corresponded with a period in which the tradition of rhetoric matured in respect to vocabulary and textualization. Al-Kirmāstī undertook a detailed examination of the science of eloquence (‘ilm al-bayān) with his treatise titled Uṣūl al-iṣṭilāḥāt al-bayāniyya, which I examine here. I will reproduce a critical edition of this treatise and examine its contribution to the science of eloquence. Al-Kirmāstī formulates his treatise by the definitions and classifications of the main concepts of the science of eloquence. In the introduction, he briefly lists the five types of words in respect to philosophy of language as adopted by scholars of rhetoric (namely ḥaqīqa: literal meaning; majāz: figurative meaning; istiʿāra: metaphor; tashbīh: simile; and kināya: metonymy). He then examines al-Sakkākī’s two formulations of literal and figurative meanings in a lengthy and detailed way and defends the position of al-Sakkākī, who was criticized by others on the issues of metonymy, rational figurative meaning, and metaphor by allusion. He explains five issues on which al-Sakkākī disagreed with earlier scholars of rhetoric. He mentions briefly al-Qazwīnī’s three different categories, i.e. literal meaning, figurative meaning, and metonymy and identifies the points of disagreement. In the last chapter, al-Kirmāstī dwells on his own classification. Therefore, he compares the classification of words by al-Sakkāki and al-Qazwīnī and underlines their points of disagreement. In this treatise, Al-Kirmāstī offers a comparative reading of the science of eloquence in respect to its classifications and conceptual framework. While maintaining important concepts and findings of al-Sakkākī’s, he adopts a critical perspective in respect to simile. While al-Sakkāki defined the science of eloquence as an effort to convey a single meaning in various ways, he kept simile provided by literal usage outside of this science and based it on figurative language and metaphor, because he based it on rational signification. However, he re-includes simile, an instrument and introduction to metaphor with a figurative meaning, into the science of eloquence as a third element. Al-Kirmāstī considers it an unreasonable argument that simile is kept outside of the science of eloquence by a logical-philosophical limitation. Despite this critique, al-Kirmāstī never ventures to adopt a rejectionist perspective that would damage al-Sakkākī’s system. Al-Kirmāstī summarizes the issues on which al-Sakkākī disagreed with other scholars of rhetoric in the following way: according to al-Sakkākī, the imaginary metaphor was of lexical figurative meanings but not of rational figurative meanings. The metaphor by allusion was the word of the thing compared but not the word of the thing compared to that which was obtained by an imaginary way. The secondary metaphor was considered as belonging to the thing compared. The rational figurative meaning was not a separate part of the figurative meaning but rather being of the thing compared. The figurative meaning by addition or subtraction was not a separate part of the figurative meaning but belonged to the figurative meaning.

The present study examines non-native (L2) and native (L1) listeners' access to figurative idiomatic meaning and literal constituent meaning in two cross-modal priming experiments. Proficient German learners of English (L2) and native speakers of American English (L1) responded to English target words preceded by English idioms embedded in non-biasing prime sentences in a lexical decision task. English idioms differed in levels of translatability: Lexical level idioms had word-for-word translation equivalents in German, while post-lexical level idioms had matching idiomatic concepts in German but could not be translated word for word. Target words either related to the figurative meaning of the idiom or related to the literal meaning of the final constituent word of the idiom (e.g., to pull someone's leg, literal target: walk, figurative target: joke). Both L1 and L2 listeners showed facilitatory priming for literally- and figuratively-related target words compared to unrelated control target words, with only marginal differences between the listener groups. No effect of translatability was found; that is, the existence of word-for-word translation equivalents in German neither facilitated nor hindered meaning activation for German L2 listeners. The results are interpreted in the context of L1 and L2 models of idiom processing as well as further relevant translation studies.

12 What native and non-native speakers' images for idioms tell us about figurative language

The title of this study is “Slang Words on Instagram Hashtags”. This study is focused on analyzing types of slang and the literal and figurative meanings of slang words on Instagram Hashtag. The data were taken from the hashtag in an Instagram post, Instagram itself was an online mobile photo-sharing, video sharing, and social networking services. Documentation method was used to collect the data and for the technique of collecting the data, note taking was used. The method and technique of analyzing the data, it was using descriptive qualitative method and analyzed based on the theoretical framework. For presenting the data, the data was presented descriptively. This study applied two theories which are the theory proposed by Allan and Burridge (2006) which focus on types of meaning consist of fresh and creative, imitative, flippant, acronym and clipping also the theory proposed by Hayes (1977) in the literal meaning and figurative meaning. Based on the data analysis, it can be seen that the fresh and creative types of slang were the most used in the Instagram hashtag and the other types of slang, are also used in the Instagram hashtag but not as much as fresh and creative. In additional, the literal meaning is based on the dictionary and the figurative meaning affected by context.

Looking hot or feeling hot: What determines the product experience of warmth?

Sentence comprehension depends on the understanding of both the individual words and their hierarcical relations with other words. So far, researchers have studied sentence processing by using different methods. In this study, sentence comprehension of school-aged children without developmental language disorder were investigated by using eye tracking measure. The data collection tool consists of ten sets of sentences in four different meaning conditions such as literal sense, figurative sense, polysemous sense and technical sense. In each condition the same target word, area of interest, were identified, which make a total of 40 target sentences. In this study, ‘the first fixation duration’, ‘total fixation duration’ and ‘total visit duration’ are used as the metrics of eye tracking data to analyze the processing of different types of Turkish sentences. The results revealed that in TVD and TFD parameters there was significant difference among all 4 categories of meanings. Furthermore, there was significant difference in TVD and TFD parameter among literal and polysemous meaning categories and figurative and polysemous meaning categories. On the contrary there was no significant difference among literal and figurative, literal and technical and figurative and technical meaning categories. The results of this study indicate that different meanings of the same word can cause different processing difficulties. The processing of polysemous meaning takes longer time than processing of literal, figurative and technical meaning. The children have difficulty in making connection between the literal meaning and polysemous meaning. Educators should improve children’s cognitive abilities and help them to create the connection between the literal and polysemous sense. The results suggest that salient meaning is more activated than the less frequent meaning. The results of the study are in consistence with Giora’s Graded Salience Hypothesis revealing that salient meaning is activated faster than the nonsalient meaning.

This study investigated whether verbs in figurative language activate different types of associations than do verbs in literal language. In a sentence-priming experiment, we compared idiomatic sentences and literal sentences that comprised the same verb. The German perfect tense is of particular interest here, since the verb (i.e. the past participle) is always cast in sentence-final position. This allowed us to examine associations with the verb immediately after its presentation. We compared response times for associations with the literal meaning of the verb, with the figurative meaning of the phrase, or for unassociated nouns. Even though the idiomatic sentences were highly predictable, our results showed that not only associations with the figurative meaning but also associations with the literal verb meaning were activated. This contrasts with the configuration hypothesis (Cacciari/Tabossi 1988) assuming that literal associations should not be activated in idiomatically biased sentences. We argue that the literal verb meaning is essential in both figurative and non-figurative language and present a model that integrates our findings.

Figurative expressions, such as idioms, are used orally and in writing in everyday language. An idiom is an expression used by itself or as a part of a sentence, and its meaning cannot be derived from the literal meaning of its constituents. Idioms can add an extra level of difficulty to the language learning process (either L1 or L2) because after understanding the literal meaning of each word, the learner has to make sense of the figurative meaning and how to use it correctly. From a pedagogical point of view, social media platforms appear to be influential with regard to learning literal and figurative meaning because they provide a context where this new language item is being used. This research investigates the role of social media platforms in figurative language learning. Different idioms are retrieved from social media platforms to show the effect of intercultural inclusion between speakers of different languages (English and Arabic). It is expected that watching a video containing figurative expressions or reading the comment section where an idiom is used can help the learners infer the meaning and know precisely how to use it and in what context. Moreover, new idioms are starting to be translated and borrowed to different languages due to L2 learners' exposure to this idiom in different contexts, which gives them an accurate depiction of it. The light is shed on the role of bilinguals and L2 learners who can work as an intercultural link between speakers of Arabic and English. 

This study examines the processing of metaphoric reference by bilingual speakers. English dominant, Spanish dominant, and balanced bilinguals read passages in English biasing either a figurative (e.g., describing a weak and soft fighter that always lost and everyone hated) or a literal (e.g., describing a donut and bakery shop that made delicious pastries) meaning of a critical metaphoric referential description (e.g., “creampuff”). We recorded the eye movements (first fixation, gaze duration, go-past duration, and total reading time) for the critical region, which was a metaphoric referential description in each passage. The results revealed that literal vs. figurative meaning activation was modulated by language dominance, where Spanish dominant bilinguals were more likely to access the literal meaning, and English dominant and balanced bilinguals had access to both the literal and figurative meanings of the metaphoric referential description. Overall, there was a general tendency for the literal interpretation to be more active, as revealed by shorter reading times for the metaphoric reference used literally, in comparison to when it was used figuratively. Results are interpreted in terms of the Graded Salience Hypothesis (Giora, 2002, 2003) and the Literal Salience Model (Cieślicka, 2006, 2015).

This study investigated whether verbs in figurative language activate different types of associations than do verbs in literal language. In a sentence-priming experiment, we compared sentences featuring verbs in idiomatic phrases with control sentences in which the same verbs were meant literally. Participants made lexical decisions about nouns that were associated with either the verb's literal meaning, with the figurative meaning of the phrase, or were unassociated nouns. Verbs in sentence-final position were highly predictable in both types of sentences and hence the phrasal meaning was rendered as figurative or literal before the sentence-final word. Our results showed that in literal sentences, the activation of literal associations was much stronger than that of figurative associations, whereas in idiomatic sentences, associations with the literal meaning of the verb were activated to the same degree as were associations with the figurative meaning. This contrasts with previous psycholinguistic research suggesting that literal associations should not be activated as soon as the phrase has been recognized as idiom. We argue that the literal verb meaning is essential in both figurative and nonfigurative language and present a model of idiom recognition that integrates our findings.