Literal Comparisons Research Articles

Figurativeness Matters in the Second Language Processing of Collocations: Evidence From a Self‐Paced Reading Experiment

AbstractThis study reports on a self‐paced reading experiment exploring whether the figurativeness of collocations affects L2 processing of collocations. The participants were 40 English native speakers and 44 Chinese‐speaking English foreign language learners (including doctoral, postgraduate, and undergraduate students). To ensure that the effect emerged from the figurativeness of collocations rather than other item‐related confounds, this study added a literal–literal comparison (e.g., choose a career vs. choose a house) as a control to the experimental figurative–literal comparison (e.g., build a career vs. build a house). Results showed that L2 speakers processed figurative collocations more slowly than literal collocation controls but native speakers did not. Importantly, this processing cost for figurative collocations in L2 speakers varied by L2 proficiency but not phrase familiarity. We discuss the results in terms of the dual‐route model of formulaic and novel language processing and also incorporate them into the literal salience model of bilingual figurative processing.

About as boring as flossing sharks: Cognitive accounts of irony and the family of approximate comparison constructions in American English

Abstract This paper reports a case study on a family of American English constructions that will be called the family of approximate comparison constructions. This family has three members, all of which follow the syntactic pattern about as X as Y with X being an adjective, but which allow three related functions: literal comparison, simile and irony. Two cognitive frameworks concern themselves with irony, the cognitive modelling approach and viewpoint approach, and the paper will show that, while the ironic approximate comparison construction calls central assumptions of the cognitive modelling approach to question, the viewpoint account can be refined to handle these cases. In doing so, it furthers our understanding of the cognitive underpinning of irony. The paper provides a corpus-based analysis on the Y slot as well as collostructional analyses on the adjectival X slot in the family of approximate comparison constructions. The results thereof suggest that the ironic approximate comparison construction, in comparison to its literal counterpart, prefers adjectives that convey positively connotated, nuanced attitudes and is formally less variable in the Y slot. The preference for particular adjectives lends further support to the assumption that hearers understand the construction as ironic or literal before speakers complete their utterance. Given that, it is argued that the ironic approximate comparison construction communicates an inherent viewpoint.

The Concept of Simile in Relevance Theory: An Analysis of the Degree of Relevance of the Simile “Houris” in the Holy Qur'an

This study deals with simile as a figure of speech in the field of theoretical linguistics and relevance theory. It presents a model in analyzing the degree of relevance in comparing “Houris” in the Quranic discourse, based on the inductive approach in reviewing related literature and the descriptive approach in selecting the material. In other words, this study further illustrates some of its pragmatic functions via Qur'anic discourse by utilizing the selected simile of "Houris"-the nymphs of paradise in the Qur'anic verses: "and wide-eyed houris, as the likeness of nestled pearls"(Al-Waqi'ah: 22-23). The use of relevance theory here reaffirms the analytical benefits of cognitive linguistic accounts. This paper is divided into two main sections. The first section is for providing conceptual clarity to the notion of simile as a single basic phenomenon. The second section provides the practical application of the study’s theoretical premise by scrutinizing the realization the Degree of Relevance of the simile “Houris” in the Holy Qur'an. This study finds that simile is more related to metaphor than to literal comparison. Unlike literal comparison, both metaphor and simile figuratively involve adhoc concepts, even though the concepts work, and are constructed and perceived differently. It further reveals that Qur'anic simile is used as a cognitive tool that facilitates inferential and interpretative processes via its communication of abstract and unseen and nuanced themes of God’s message to its audience. The houris' similes essentially provide its recipients with strong ostensive stimuli with strong contextual effects, while the contents enable them to exert the least cognitive effort to grasp the intangible and immeasurable, and infer the utterance intended meaning. Keywords: Linguistics, Cognitive linguistics, Relevance Theory, Simile, Qur’anic Studies.

Familiarity and Aptness in Metaphor Comprehension.

The career of metaphor hypothesis suggests that novel metaphors are understood through a search for shared features between the topic and vehicle, but with repeated exposure, the figurative meaning is understood directly as a new category is established. The categorization hypothesis argues that instead good or apt metaphors are understood through a categorization process, whether or not they are familiar. Only poor metaphors ever invoke a literal comparison. In Experiment 1, with aptness equated, we found that high familiarity speeded comprehension time over low-familiarity metaphors. In Experiment 2a, providing a literal prime failed to facilitate interpretation of low-familiarity metaphors, contrary to the career of metaphor hypothesis. In Experiment 2b, with familiarity equated, high- and low-aptness metaphors did not differ, contrary to the categorization hypothesis.

Comprehension and Production of Non - Literal Comparisons (NLC) via Visual Stimuli in Children

The present study focuses on the comprehension and production of non-literal comparisons (NLC) via visual means in three age groups: kindergarten, second grade and fifth grade students. Although non-literality is a cognitive process, the educational system does not take advantage of it in pedagogy, especially before the fourth grade. The research tools designed from scratch were based on the three categories of perceptual, visual similarities – features: Static-specific features (shape, size, color), static – general features (e.g., age: young – old) and dynamic features (e.g., motion). The results revealed that all of the children were capable of comprehending and producing NLC via visual stimuli, despite the assumption that non – literality is mastered only by older children. Furthermore, it appears that the visual aids play a key factor in both comprehension and production of NLC. Both comprehension and production of NLC increase with age, but production increase occurs at a very slow rate. Despite the fact that two separate studies were executed by the same researchers, there are slight indications that lead us to conclude that comprehending NLC is simpler than producing them. Another result is that NLC based on the static – specific features (shape, size and color) were not easier than the static – general features and dynamic features to comprehend and produce, as it has been supposed by previous studies on children’s language development and thought (e.g., Clark, 1993; Winner et al., 1988).

Like in Similes – A Relevance-Theoretic View

The paper examines the meaning of like as used in similes in the light of relevance theory. Similes, even though superficially indistinguishable from literal comparisons, are found to be closer to metaphors. Therefore, it is proposed that like in similes is different from like employed in literal comparisons. In particular, it is claimed that, contrary to the current relevance-theoretic position on this issue, like in similes introduces an ad hoc concept. This like is seen as both conceptual and procedural and, as such, it is distinct from both the conceptual like used in literal comparisons and the procedural like functioning as a pragmatic marker. Such a solution accounts for the similarities and differences between similes, metaphors and literal comparisons.

Metaphor and Simile: Fallacies Concerning Comparison, Ellipsis, and Inter-Paraphrase

Comparison-based views of nominal metaphor (metaphor in A-is-B style where A and B are noun phrases) have often been characterized as casting such metaphor as elliptical, compressed or implicit simile. This characterization, while useful for some purposes, is nevertheless a misleading fallacy. It diverts attention from two matters: from the possibility of metaphor and simile being processed by different forms of comparison, and from the role of other processing occurring between surface form and mental comparison processes. Both matters, when taken into consideration, severely affect the way that the results of psychological experiments on metaphor and simile understanding are interpreted. Another, related, fallacy that has been current is a set of claims about whether simile and/or literal comparisons can be paraphrased into copular form or vice versa. This fallacy has, for instance, been used to support a distinction between simile and literal comparison. The article does not support or attack any particular type of theory of metaphor or simile understanding, but instead clarifies the space of theoretical possibilities and introduces added caution into the interpretation of relevant experiments.

Co-expression networks: graph properties and topological comparisons

Abstract Motivation: Microarray-based gene expression data have been generated widely to study different biological processes and systems. Gene co-expression networks are often used to extract information about groups of genes that are ‘functionally’ related or co-regulated. However, the structural properties of such co-expression networks have not been rigorously studied and fully compared with known biological networks. In this article, we aim at investigating the structural properties of co-expression networks inferred for the species Saccharomyces Cerevisiae and comparing them with the topological properties of the known, well-established transcriptional network, MIPS physical network and protein–protein interaction (PPI) network of yeast. Results: These topological comparisons indicate that co-expression networks are not distinctly related with either the PPI or the MIPS physical interaction networks, showing important structural differences between them. When focusing on a more literal comparison, vertex by vertex and edge by edge, the conclusion is the same: the fact that two genes exhibit a high gene expression correlation degree does not seem to obviously correlate with the existence of a physical binding between the proteins produced by these genes or the existence of a MIPS physical interaction between the genes. The comparison of the yeast regulatory network with inferred yeast co-expression networks would suggest, however, that they could somehow be related. Conclusions: We conclude that the gene expression-based co-expression networks reflect more on the gene regulatory networks but less on the PPI or MIPS physical interaction networks. Contact: hongzhe@mail.med.upenn.edu Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

Comparing uncertainty analysis techniques for a SWAT application to the Chaohe Basin in China

Summary Distributed watershed models are increasingly being used to support decisions about alternative management strategies in the areas of land use change, climate change, water allocation, and pollution control. For this reason it is important that these models pass through a careful calibration and uncertainty analysis. To fulfil this demand, in recent years, scientists have come up with various uncertainty analysis techniques for watershed models. To determine the differences and similarities of these techniques we compared five uncertainty analysis procedures: Generalized Likelihood Uncertainty Estimation (GLUE), Parameter Solution (ParaSol), Sequential Uncertainty FItting algorithm (SUFI-2), and a Bayesian framework implemented using Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) and Importance Sampling (IS) techniques. As these techniques are different in their philosophies and leave the user some freedom in formulating the generalized likelihood measure, objective function, or likelihood function, a literal comparison between these techniques is not possible. As there is a small spectrum of different applications in hydrology for the first three techniques, we made this choice according to their typical use in hydrology. For Bayesian inference, we used a recently developed likelihood function that does not obviously violate the statistical assumptions, namely a continuous-time autoregressive error model. We implemented all these techniques for the soil and water assessment tool (SWAT) and applied them to the Chaohe Basin in China. We compared the results with respect to the posterior parameter distributions, performances of their best estimates, prediction uncertainty, conceptual bases, computational efficiency, and difficulty of implementation. The comparison results for these categories are listed and the advantages and disadvantages are analyzed. From the point of view of the authors, if computationally feasible, Bayesian-based approaches are most recommendable because of their solid conceptual basis, but construction and test of the likelihood function requires critical attention.

2006 Conference of the International Hormesis Society: Stress Response Mechanisms: From Single Cells to Multinational Organizations

Can a literal comparison be made between biological phenomena in organisms and phenomena in human organizations? The evidence provided by simplified but useful examples appears to suggest that a phenomenon simulating hormesis can and does occur in organizational contexts. Similarities between stress response behaviors of organisms and stress response behaviors in organizations are discussed. Cellular stress response mechanisms stimulate and repair, as well as defend the organism against further attacks. Organizational hormesis describes actions that stimulate the organization by increasing its focus and protecting it against future attacks. The common aim for the organism as well as the organization is to increase the probability of survival. The following describes examples of organizational survival that demonstrate a number of hormetic parallels between organisms and organisations.

Convention, Form, and Figurative Language Processing

There are 2 basic controversies concerning how metaphors are processed. First, are metaphoric mappings more akin to literal comparisons or to literal categorizations? And second, is metaphor comprehension indirect or direct? We believe that these controversies are more apparent than real and that a unified theoretical framework can be offered that reconciles these opposing views. The central idea is that all metaphors involve structural alignment of the target and base domains. Whether these alignments are more akin to comparisons or to categorizations, and whether they are computed directly or indirectly, depends on 2 factors: the type of representation invoked by the base term and the linguistic form of the metaphor.

Metaphor as Categorization: A Connectionist Implementation

A key issue for models of metaphor comprehension is to explain how, in some metaphorical comparison "A is B," only some features of B are transferred to A. The features of B that are transferred to A depend both on A and on B. This is the central thrust of Black's (1979) well-known interaction theory of metaphor comprehension. However, this theory is somewhat abstract, and it is not obvious how it may be implemented in terms of mental representations and processes. In this article, we describe a simple computational model of online metaphor comprehension that combines Black's interaction theory with the idea that metaphor comprehension is a type of categorization process (Glucksberg & Keysar, 1990, 1993). The model is based on a distributed connectionist network depicting semantic memory (McClelland & Rumelhart, 1986). The network learns feature-based information about various concepts. A metaphor is comprehended by applying a representation of the first term (A) to the network storing knowledge of the second term (B), in an attempt to categorize it as an exemplar of B. The output of this network is a representation of A transformed by the knowledge of B. We explain how this process embodies an interaction of knowledge between the 2 terms of the metaphor, how it accords with the contemporary theory of metaphor stating that comprehension for literal and metaphorical comparisons is carried out by identical mechanisms (Gibbs, 1994), and how it accounts for existing empirical evidence (Glucksberg, McGlone, & Manfredi, 1997) and generates new predictions. In this model, the distinction between literal and metaphorical language is one of degree, not of kind.

Informativity and Asymmetry in Comparisons

We propose an account of comparison asymmetries based on viewing comparison as a process of structural alignment and mapping. Specifically, we hypothesize that (1) comparison asymmetries result from directional differences in informativity, and that (2) asymmetries can therefore be predicted from the relative degree of systematicity or conceptual coherence of the items being compared. In Experiment 1, we found a clear preference for placing the more systematic of two passages in the base position of a comparison. Experiments 1 and 2 further showed that structural alignability is crucial in obtaining such asymmetries. In Experiment 3, we found that asymmetries are predicted by the relative systematicity of the comparisons items rather than by the relative size of the distinctive feature sets. These results are inconsistent with accounts of asymmetry based on feature contrast or stimulus bias. In Experiments 4 through 6, we tested the functional implications of our account by examining inference projection and perceived informativity across asymmetric comparisons. Critically, comparisons having the more systematic item as the base were more likely to result in inference projection and other forms of target modification and were rated as more informative than reverse comparisons. We conclude by demonstrating that this account can explain comparison asymmetries without positing underlying asymmetries in subjective similarity, and that it offers a unified approach to the directionality of literal comparisons, analogies, and metaphors.

Platonism and metaphor in the texts of mathematics : Gödel and Frege on mathematical knowledge

In this paper, I challenge those interpretations of Frege that reinforce the view that his talk of grasping thoughts about abstract objects is consistent with Russell's notion of acquaintance with universals and with Godel's contention that we possess a faculty of mathematical perception capable of perceiving the objects of set theory. Here I argue the case that Frege is not an epistemological Platonist in the sense in which Godel is one. The contention advanced is that Godel bases his Platonism on a literal comparison between mathematical intuition and physical perception. He concludes that since we accept sense perception as a source of empirical knowledge, then we similarly should posit a faculty of mathematical intuition to serve as the source of mathematical knowledge. Unlike Godel, Frege does not posit a faculty of mathematical intuition. Frege talks instead about grasping thoughts about abstract objects. However, despite his hostility to metaphor, he uses the notion of ‘grasping’ as a strategic metaphor to model his notion of thinking, i.e., to underscore that it is only by logically manipulating the cognitive content of mathematical propositions that we can obtain mathematical knowledge. Thus, he construes ‘grasping’ more as theoretical activity than as a kind of inner mental ‘seeing’.

Authorial intentions and metaphor comprehension

Three experiments investigated the role of authorial intentions in metaphor comprehension. In these studies, subjects read metaphoric (e.g., "A family album is like a museum"), literal (e.g., "An art gallery is like a museum"), and anomalous (e.g., "A tortoise shell is like an art gallery") comparisons and rated their degree of meaningfulness (Experiment 1), made speeded decisions as to whether each phrase was meaningful or not (Experiment 2), or wrote out interpretations of each comparison statement (Experiment 3). The subjects were told that the comparisons were written either by famous 20th century poets or by a computer program that randomly generated the statements from a list of words. Our general hypothesis was that knowing that intentional agents (the poets) authored the different comparisons should facilitate subjects' comprehension of the metaphors. Experiment 1 showed that subjects rated both metaphoric and literal comparisons as being more meaningful in the poet condition than when these statements were supposedly written by computer. Experiment 2 demonstrated that subjects were faster in making their meaningfulness judgments for metaphors in the poet condition than in the computer context, but that subjects were also slower in rejecting anomalous comparisons when these were supposedly written by the poets. Experiment 3 indicated that subjects produced more meanings or interpretations for comparisons presumably written by poets than by computer. These results highlight the importance of implied, authorial intentions in understanding metaphorical statements. We discuss the implications of this work for psycholinguistic theories of figurative language comprehension, as well as for theories of literary interpretation.

Understanding metaphorical comparisons: Beyond similarity.

Traditionally, metaphors such as job is a jail have been treated as implicit similes (i.e., this metaphor would be treated as if it were a comparison statement, job is like a jail). Tversky's account of similarity is applied to such nonliteral similarity expressions, and is shown to apply as readily to nonliteral comparisons as to literal comparisons. But treating metaphors as comparison statements fails to account for certain important phenomena, including metaphoricity itself (the judgment that a comparison statement is nonliteral). We argue that metaphors are exactly what they appear to be: class-inclusion assertions, in which the topic of the metaphor (e.g., job) is assigned to a diagnostic category (e.g., entities that confine one against one's will, are unpleasant, are difficult to escape from). In such assertions, the metaphor vehicle (e.g., jail) refers to that category, and at the same time is a prototypical exemplar of that category. This account of metaphor provides a basis for a theory of metaphor comprehension, and also clarifies why people use metaphors instead of similes. How do people understand nonliteral expressions such as my grandfather is a baby? Taken literally, this sentence seems false. A grandfather must be an adult, and an adult cannot be of an age to be included in the category baby. According to traditional theories of metaphor comprehension (see Ortony, 1979a), the listener must reject this false literal interpretation and somehow find a nonliteral interpretation that is appropriate to the context of the conversation. In terms of speech act theory, where an utterance is defective if taken literally, look for an utterance that differs from sentence meaning (Searle, 1979, p. 114, italics added). A comprehension model based on this assumption postulates three stages:

Symmetric and asymmetric comparisons

The present paper focuses on the distinction between symmetric and asymmetric comparisons of the form ‘A is like B’. Three main proposals are made: (1) It is proposed, contrary to a view commonly put forward in various studies of metaphor (e.g., Ortony (1979)), that the symmetry vs. asymmetry distinction in comparison statements is orthogonal to the literal vs. metaphor distinction; i.e., it is argued that both metaphorical and literal comparisons exhibit asymmetric and symmetric types. (2) The key notion, relative to which the distinction between symmetric and asymmetric comparisons is defined, is the ‘accepted order’: asymmetric comparisons are defined as those in which one of the two possible orders (i.e., ‘A is like B’ or ‘B is like A’) is the ‘accepted-order’, while the other is not. By contrast, in all cases of symmetric comparison there is no preference for one order over the other. The second proposal, then, is a definition of the ‘structural’ conditions under which a certain order is to be conceived as an ‘accepted order’: (i) The concepts represented by the A and B terms must both be conceived of as being included in the domain of some easily constructed ad-hoc or stable category G; (ii) The B term must be a prominent member of G. (3) A cognitive account for the relative ease of processing the accepted order is proposed. It is argued that the principles underlying the Reference point-Deviant relations (see Rosch (1975)) can be extended to the domain of ad-hoc categories. Some general implications of these proposals regarding theories of categorization in general are discussed.

Salience, similes, and the asymmetry of similarity

Models of similarity have traditionally assumed that the similarity relation is symmetrical. However, when reversed, similarity statements frequently have different properties from those of the original. Previous attempts to account for the asymmetry of similarity have focused only on literal comparisons, resulting in a tendency to underestimate the degree of asymmetry in nonliteral comparisons (i.e., similes). A model of similarity is proposed to account for the varying degrees of asymmetry found in all kinds of natural language comparisons. In this model, asymmetry is attributed to an imbalance in the salience of the shared attributes. Studies are reported which test key aspects of the model. The results appear to provide converging evidence for the claim that asymmetry of similarity is due at least in part to salience imbalance.