Metaphor Processing Research Articles

Metaphorical language processing and amygdala activation in L1 and L2

The present study aims to investigate the neural correlates of processing conventional figurative language in non-native speakers in a comparison with native speakers. Italian proficient L2 learners of German and German native speakers read conventional metaphorical statements as well as literal paraphrases that were comparable on a range of psycholinguistic variables. Results confirm previous findings that native speakers show increased activity for metaphorical processing, and left amygdala activation increases with increasing Metaphoricity. At the whole-brain level, L2 learners showed the expected overall differences in activation when compared to native speakers (in the fronto-temporal network). But L2 speakers did not show any distinctive activation outside the caudate nucleus as Metaphoricity increased, suggesting that the L2 speakers were less affected by increasing Metaphoricity than native speakers were. With small volume correction, only a single peak in the amygdala reached threshold for L2 speakers as Metaphoricity increased. The findings are consistent with the view that metaphorical language is more engaging for native speakers but not necessarily for L2 speakers.

Вспышка, всплеск или волна: как и что мы говорим о коронавирусе

In the news language as a special media genre, changes in the lexical and semantic system of the language are very quickly manifested, reflecting the dynamics of social, political, and economic life. The research of news texts in critical eras is very relevant in terms of identifying trends in new vocabulary functioning. The pandemic is created a “pandemic” discourse in which new words are an important part of the lexical and semantic level of discourse. The study of neologisms in the active phase, at the very peak of functioning, allows us to comprehend the linguistic mechanism of new words formation, the external generation factor of which is extralinguistic reality. We establish that new words in the pandemic discourse appear in several ways: intralingual borrowing from highly specialized terminology (herd immunity, “cytokine storm”), foreign borrowing (coronavirus), as a result of metaphorization (wave, cover, crowned) and word-formation processes (corona, coronacrisis). Coronavirus is personified, it is presented as the evil of global and planet dimension, as a threat to humanity. We also reveal that the general emotional-expressive negativization of discourse determines the choice of native speakers from potentially possible extensions of the word semantics of meanings with negative evaluative connotations (crowned, burst). Semes of suddenness and intensity dominate in synonyms describing the coro-navirus spread. The metaphor of wave contains a predictability component, which predicts the possibility of the next coronavirus wave, its timing, and the degree of danger to people. The enrichment of common words with highly specialized medical terms can be named as a specific tendency of the “pandemic” discourse.

Translation Analysis of Metaphor Translation in the Black Slaves

Metaphor is not only a rhetorical method, but also a cognitive model. This article firstly identifies the metaphors in the first five chapters of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and then finds the corresponding Chinese translation from Lin’s Black slaves. Through the comparison of the original and the translation, this article tried to explore Lin Shu’s metaphorical cognitive process in translation and metaphorical translation methods.

Bluesman – Baco Exu Do Blues: pela criação de novas narrativas possíveis para o sujeito negro

Este trabalho parte da compreensão do sujeito negro como aquele que, dentro da sociedade brasileira, se enquadra na parcela da população que se reconhece como preta ou parda. Nesse sentido, ser negro é construir-se e ser construído identitariamente como pertencente a uma parcela da população que fora durante muito tempo marginalizada. Por reconhecer a complexidade de definição do sujeito negro e a importância de ouvir essas vozes que foram durante muito tempo dissidentes, disponho-me a investigar o processo de perspectivação de si, enquanto pessoa negra, na canção Bluesman do rapper Baco Exu do Blues. Mais precisamente, o estudo visa compreender, em uma perspectiva discursivo-cognitiva, esse processo de perspectivação e encenação da experiência do sujeito negro na narrativa construída por Baco Exu do Blues na música Bluesman. Compreendo que a perspectivação cognitiva é uma operação básica constitutiva da capacidade narrativa humana e que essa pode ser flagrada e descrita na dinâmica de encenação enunciativa das narrativas analisadas. Assumo como hipóteses que: i) na base da construção identitária como “pessoa negra” do sujeito em estudo está o processo de perspectivação da experiência de (re)construção de narrativas sobre si; e ii) esse processo implica referenciar-se enquanto negro com base na co-construção de metáforas multimodais. Como forma de atingir o objetivo assumido, utilizarei como referencial teórico Forceville (2016), por sua importância na interpretação de objetos de ordem multimodal; Brandt (2004), que permite a construção de uma análise ancorada na teoria dos níveis de integração; e Lakoff (1980), por compreender sua relevância para qualquer pesquisa que se proponha a estudar o processo de metaforização.

Produções de sentido em torno do termo “Deus” no Quarto Evangelho à luz da Teoria das Metáforas Conceptuais

O objetivo deste artigo é o de, observando as especificidades da linguagem metafórica do Apóstolo João, apresentarmos um teste metodológico da Teoria das Metáforas Conceptuais a fim de elaborarmos uma chave de leitura para o termo "Deus" no Quarto Evangelho, a qual leve em conta a noção cognitiva dos processamentos metafóricos.

Similarities and Differences between Verbal and Visual Metaphor Processing: an EEG Study

AbstractThis EEG study explores similarities and differences between verbal and visual metaphor comprehension processes. The results of the study show that interpreting either a verbal stimulus or a visual stimulus metaphorically activates similar brain areas, but there are significant differences between the two in terms of neural connectivity and resource allocation patterns. A greater intra-hemispheric connectivity was observed during verbal metaphor comprehension as compared to greater inter-hemispheric connectivity during visual metaphor comprehension. Results of our novel method, called µ index, suggested a distinct information processing mechanism for metaphor in verbal and visual modalities. We found that metaphorical interpretations, especially highly creative interpretations, of visual stimuli required allocation of greater resources when compared to highly creative interpretations of verbal stimuli. Overall, these results provide a deeper insight into the multimodal nature of metaphor processing.

Enacting everyday feminist collaborations: Reflexive becoming, proactive improvisation and co‐learning partnerships

We trace back our own multi‐year teaching and writing collaboration in academia to theorize feminist collaboration. Drawing from feminist theories and our autoethnographic reflections, we surface three metaphorical processes that constitute feminist collaboration. We consider feminist collaboration as: (i) reflexive becoming, that is, feminist collaborators constantly make sense of what counts as feminist as the group and context evolve; (ii) proactive improvisation, that is, feminist collaborators collectively strive for everyday transformations within situated constraints; and (iii) co‐learning partnerships, that is, feminist collaborators relate to one another in ways that uphold commitments to reflexivity, equity and care. Enacting these processes are fraught with tensions that intertwine with one another to constrain and enable feminist collaboration. We conclude the article by calling for continued theorization and engagement with feminist collaboration.

Style of religious texts as a potential hindrance in interpreter training

According to the thematic progression model of Janikowski (2011) religious texts can be used at the early stages of interpreter training. The reservations against such placement of allegedly stylistically sophisticated texts are scrutinised in the following paper by means of (1) developing a set of features of spoken religious discourse and (2) empirically testing their frequency in a convenience corpus. The results do show an unexpectedly high level of metaphorical saturation of spoken religious texts (1.4 per minute of speech), but they also show that only 8% of these metaphors were unconventional and that speakers sometimes employed special means of facilitating metaphor processing. Additionally, the appearance of other markers traditionally recognised as elements of religious style (intertextual allusions, markers of higher register and other figures of speech) was only marginal. Thus, the results support the use of religious texts as the second stage in thematic development, however, with a set of recommendations.

Preschoolers’ Metaphor Comprehension. Methodological Issues in Experimental Pragmatics

Abstract There exists a variety of theoretical frameworks attempting to account for the nature, comprehension, and use of everyday metaphor. Since these frameworks use different operational definitions of metaphor, they tend to view the psycholinguistic process of comprehending metaphorical language and the various factors that may play a role in metaphor processing from different perspectives. The first part of the paper briefly summarizes four of these theoretical approaches to everyday metaphor (Conceptual Metaphor Theory, Similarity Theory, Relevance Theory, and the Optimal Innovation Hypothesis) and discusses some consequences of the diversity of theories that present a puzzle or prove to be undesirable for empirical research. The areas discussed include the various dimensions of metaphor categorization, the role of linguistic context, and the effects of linguistic and non-linguistic cognitive skills of the comprehender. Drawing on the discussion in the first part, the second part of the paper outlines an experiment designed with reference to Giora’s Optimal Innovation Hypothesis in which preschoolers’ metaphor comprehension is explored as a function of the familiarity of the expression’s literal meaning and the perceived creativity of the metaphorical use. This experiment further explores the relationship between children’s metaphor comprehension and other cognitive abilities such as intention attribution. This method allows us to quantify metaphor comprehension and preference in the context of pragmatic development and general cognitive skills.

ПРОЦЕСС МЕТАФОРИЗАЦИИ В ТЕХНИЧЕСКОМ ДИСКУРСЕ НА МАТЕРИАЛЕ НЕМЕЦКОЯЗЫЧНЫХ ТЕКСТОВ

The article examines metaphorization process in the German technical discourse. A metaphor is considered as a cognitive means of manipulation, which serves to realize the author’s pragmatic intentions. The analysis of illustrative material shows how the combination of the verbal and visual metaphor helps to form the required stable image in the addressee’s consciousness. The analysis of the German technical texts indicates that the use of stylistic devices broadens a company’s communicative potential and promotes successful communication with partners at all the stages of interaction.

The metaphorization phenomenon in the English literature texts. Actualization of the time concept through the metaphorical realization process

1. Addison Joseph (2006) Essays and Tales. / Dodo Press, p.128. ISBN 9781406505191. Google Scholar

Comprehending conventional and novel metaphor processing: A reaction time study

Comprehending conventional and novel metaphor processing: A reaction time study

The ‘Carbon Capture’ Metaphor: An English-Arabic Terminological Case Study

The study of metaphorization processes in scientific texts is essential in terminological studies and the conceptual representation of specialized knowledge. It is considered to be a prolific tool in the creation of neologisms. Many cognitive models tried to study metaphorisation processes by drawing on metaphor and metonymy based on linguistic evidence. However, recent studies have highlighted the necessity of carrying out empirical tests in order to provide refined results that go beyond the traditional theories of conceptual metaphor and metonymy. This paper analyzes the underlying metaphor in the ‘carbon capture and sequestration’ event in both English and Arabic. It also discusses the influence of English, the lingua franca, in the transfer of the neologism ‘carbon capture and sequestration’, via translation processes, and its role in the so-called domain loss in the target language. Results were obtained through a corpus-based contrastive terminological analysis, extracted from specialized texts in English and Arabic in the subdomain of climate change. Data analysis was approached from the perspective of Frame-Based Terminology and Conceptual Complexes.

Imagination and Knowledge in the Metaphorology of Paul Ricœur

AbstractThis article seeks to examine Ricœur's reflection on metaphor through an intertextual reading. This reading relates The Rule of Metaphor (1975) with lines of thought developed in a series of lectures held at the Centre de recherches phénoménologiques in Paris, from 1973–1974, on the theme From Language to Image, and an essay which appeared in 1978, “The Metaphorical Process as Cognition, Imagination and Feeling”. This work starts with an analysis of Ricœur's interpretation of the Aristotelian theory of metaphor, a theory which the French philosopher principally develops in The Rule of Metaphor. In the other two papers, Ricœur develops his metaphorology through a dialogue with Kant and he reformulates in linguistic terms the doctrine of productive imagination and transcendental schematism, which become the ontological sphere on which metaphorical and narrative activity are founded. Through the long journey of language, Ricœur's hermeneutics builds a bridge between Aristotle and Kant. This article examines this link to understand and explain further, also at the epistemological level, the relationship between metaphor and narrative.

Metaphorical Terms as Part of English Legal Terminology

The present research features the role of metaphorical term formation in the Anglo-American legal term system on the basis of a multi-aspect analysis of a lexicographic source. A thorough examination showed that metaphorization is a full-featured but not productive mechanism of terminology production in the sphere of jurisprudence. Metaphorical terms that function in major, specialized, and complex branches of law represent less than 1% of all terminological units recorded in the ABBYY Press legal dictionary. The paper focuses on mono-lexemic and poly-lexemic legal terms formed by metaphorization. Two- and three-component metaphorical terms were found most frequent. This fact can be explained both by the binary essence of the metaphorical process itself and by a high degree of specification of the legal concept. The position of the metaphorical component was taken into account when the terminological combinations were systematized. The paper contains some examples of various types of metaphoric shift in term formation: reframing according to (1) functional analogy, (2) identity of the produced impression, (3) size correspondence, (4) similarity of origin, (5) the presence of related properties, and (6) the same extension in space. The author singled out anthropomorphic, socio-morphic, artifactual, and nature-morphic metaphorical models of legal term formation. The predominant distribution of anthropomorphic legal metaphors reached almost 50% of the whole selection of examples. The paper describes and illustrates conceptual source spheres of all four categories of terminological metaphors in the legal field. As for some vague cases, the author specified the significative zone of the metaphor according to its figurative-semantic focus. In addition, the study differentiated universal and nationally-marked legal metaphorical terms. Particular attention in this classification was given to metaphorical terms that bear precedent phenomena which are part of the cognitive base of the English-speaking socio-cultural community and serve as a key to understanding its legal norms.

Comparison Types in the Semantic Extension of Diidxazá Body Part Terms.

Body part terms (BPTs) are used extensively in Mesoamerican languages to name object parts. The process through which BPTs might be extended to refer to a part of an object and further serve as a relator in describing the relation between objects in space has often been attributed to metaphorical processes. This study proposes an alternative analysis following a Structure-Mapping Theory approach (Gentner, 1983, inter alia), based on data from Diidxazá (Isthmus Zapotec, Otomanguean) obtained through elicitation and experimental tasks. The data show that structure mapping does not depend on a 1:1 match of attributes; frequency of use shed light on principles that constrain the semantic extension of most BPTs; a core set of six BPTs are extended by abstraction of the set of intersecting axes of the body. The detailed nature of this study enables an analysis of the mental representations underlying the semantic extension of BPTs. This in turn elucidates on aspects of the relation between spatial language and spatial cognition. In addition, this study allows us to address questions about the categorial status of BPTs in Diidxazá and their lexicographic representation.

The role of imagination in consumers’ processing of visual metaphors in prescription drug advertising

This research examines the influence of visual metaphors in direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) for prescription drugs. Results indicate that consumers’ propensity to imagine enhances their objective comprehension of direct-to-consumer (DTC) pharmaceutical advertisements that contain fused visual metaphors (vs. juxtaposed visual metaphors). Additionally, when DTC pharmaceutical advertisements feature visual metaphors with low comparability, consumers primed with imagination-focused visualization rather than memory-focused visualization inducements experience greater information-seeking intentions regarding drug health risks for ads using fused rather than juxtaposed visual metaphors. These results suggest notable DTCA insights for advertising and policymaking.

PREPOSITIONS AND THEIR SYNTACTIC USE IN ALBANIAN AND ENGLISH

A preposition is a word or set of words that indicates location or some other relationship between a noun or pronoun and other parts of the sentence. It refers to the word or phrase which shows the relationship between one thing and another, linking nouns, pronouns and phrases to other words in a sentence. They are abstract words that have no concrete meaning. They merely show the relationships between groups of words. Within a preposition, there are many different variations in meaning that are conveyed. The proper interpretation of prepositions is an important issue for automatic natural language understanding. Although the complexity of preposition usage has been argued for and documented by various scholars in linguistics, psycholinguistics, and computational linguistics, very few studies have been done on the function of prepositions in natural language processing (NLP) applications. The reason is that prepositions are probably the most polysemous category and thus, their linguistic realizations are difficult to predict and their cross-linguistic regularities difficult to identify. Prepositions play a major role in the syntactic structures of the English language and they often make an essential contribution to sentence meaning by signifying temporal and spatial relationships, as well as abstract relations involving cause and purpose, agent and instrument, manner and accompaniment, support and much more. They are sensitive linguistic elements that are culturally acceptable and very well known to all members of the same linguistic community. According to cognitive semantics, the figurative senses of a preposition are extended from its spatial senses through conceptual metaphors. In a pedagogical context, it may be useful to draw learners' attention to those aspects of a preposition's spatial sense that are especially relevant for its metaphorization processes. Prepositions have type restrictions on their arguments, they assign thematic roles, and they have a semantic content, possibly underspecified. The only difference with the other open-class categories like nouns, verbs or adjectives is that they do not have any morphology.

Processing verb–noun compound words in Spanish: Evidence from event-related potentials

ABSTRACTThe following abstract contains 150 words: Studies regarding compound word processing have centred on Noun–noun words, which exhibit endocentricity. Nevertheless, other compound types, such as Spanish Verb–noun compounds, exhibit morphological particularities such as exocentricity, verb argument structure, and metaphorical features, increasing the attributes that may influence compound processing. We analysed whether these traits influenced Spanish Verb–noun compound processing. A lexical decision task was administrated with electroencephalogram (EEG) recording. Following differences in argument structure and metaphorical traits, three compound types were presented: Agentives, Locatives, and Metaphoricals. Locatives were responded worse and slower than Agentives. Metaphoricals elicited increases in the P300 and P600-like components. Thus, verb argument structure and metaphorical processes influence Spanish Verb–noun compound processing. Similarly to endocentric English Noun–noun compounds, processing Spanish Verb–noun compounds involves specific conceptual operations. These conceptual combinations appear to be determined by the projection of verb argument structure and the mapping and assignation of thematic roles.

Semantic processing of metaphor: A case-study of deep dyslexia

Abstract Deep dyslexia is characterized by the production of semantic errors (e.g., reading the word weird aloud as odd) during oral reading and greater difficulty reading aloud abstract words than concrete words. In this paper, we examine whether deep dyslexia affects higher-order semantic processing; namely, metaphor comprehension. To that end, we asked GL, a participant with deep dylexia, to rate novel metaphors (e.g., language is a bridge) for comprehensibility. The topics of the metaphors (e.g., “language” in the item above) varied on concreteness, such that they were either abstract or concrete. Also, the semantic neighbourhood density (SND) of the constituent nouns (e.g., “language”, “bridge”) was manipulated. In addition to metaphors, GL also rated literal (e.g., a gorilla is an ape) and semantically anomalous sentences (e.g., arrival is a shoestring). GL rated the literal sentences as maximally comprehensible and he also rated the abstract-low SND metaphors as comprehensible. However, other, more semantically rich metaphors (i.e., those with concrete constituents or high-SND constituents) were treated as non-comprehensible with ratings indistinguishable from ratings given to anomalous sentences. We discuss how GL’s data align with models of deep dyslexia and metaphor processing.