On catching on to idiomatic expressions

These experiments concern the comprehension of idiomatic expressions. The hypothesis was that there are distinct idiomatic and literal modes of processing sentences. In two experiments, 414 undergraduates read a series of sentences containing either literal or idiomatic ambiguities and then a test which had both a literal and an idiomatic meaning. Ss recorded, which meaning they perceived first. Taken together, the experiments indicate that inducing a set to perceive idioms can increase the proportion of people seeing the idiomatic meaning of test sentence first and a set to perceive literal meanings can reduce this proportion compared to a no-set baseline. Since the procedures to induce set did not involve grammatical or semantic information relevant to comprehension of the test sentence, these results suggest the existence of distinct literal and idiomatic processing strategies.     

J. L. Austin and Literal Meaning

Alice Crary has recently developed a radical reading of J. L. Austin's philosophy of language. The central contention of Crary's reading is that Austin gives convincing reasons to reject the idea that sentences have context‐invariant literal meaning. While I am in sympathy with Crary about the continuing importance of Austin's work, and I think Crary's reading is deep and interesting, I do not think literal sentence meaning is one of Austin's targets, and the arguments that Crary attributes to Austin or finds Austinian in spirit do not provide convincing reasons to reject literal sentence meaning. In this paper, I challenge Crary's reading of Austin and defend the idea of literal sentence meaning.     

Effects of changes in narrative time on eye movements and recognition responses

Abstract

Gibbs and O'Brien (1990) recently claimed that the images that people associate with everyday idioms reflect the deep conceptual metaphors that underlie the meanings of those idioms. However, because idiomatic strings can convey both a literal and an idiomatic meaning, people must be able to inhibit or ignore literal meanings if they are to produce mental images that uniquely reflect idiomatic meanings. We investigated the potential interference between literal and idiomatic meanings in three experiments. Experiment 1 used a mental-image production task similar to that used by Gibbs and O'Brien. Counter to Gibbs and O'Brien's claim, the images that we obtained referred overwhelmingly to the literal meanings of idiomatic strings rather than to their idiomatic meanings. Experiments 2 and 3 employed a paraphrase verification task to examine the effects of mental imagery on idiom comprehension. If the images associated with an idiom reflect that idiom's meaning, then imagery should facilitate comprehension. No evidence for facilitation was found in either experiment. Instead, imagery interfered with comprehension, as assessed by paraphrase verification time, both for idiomatic meanings and for literal, concrete meanings. We conclude that the images associated with idioms do not reflect idiom meanings.     

Musical metaphors: Evidence for a spatial grounding of non-literal sentences describing auditory events

This study investigated whether the spatial terms high and low, when used in sentence contexts implying a non-literal interpretation, trigger similar spatial associations as would have been expected from the literal meaning of the words. In three experiments, participants read sentences describing either a high or a low auditory event (e.g., The soprano sings a high aria vs. The pianist plays a low note). In all Experiments, participants were asked to judge (yes/no) whether the sentences were meaningful by means of up/down (Experiments 1 and 2) or left/right (Experiment 3) key press responses. Contrary to previous studies reporting that metaphorical language understanding differs from literal language understanding with regard to simulation effects, the results show compatibility effects between sentence implied pitch height and response location. The results are in line with grounded models of language comprehension proposing that sensory motor experiences are being elicited when processing literal as well as non-literal sentences.     

Components of metaphoric processing

Three experiments examined whether sentences interpretable as metaphorical and literal expressions differed on three components of processing: perceptual decoding, sense selection, and integration of terms. In Experiments 1 and 2 metaphorical words were identified more readily than literal words on separate tests of perceptual identification and word recognition. In Experiment 3 the conveyed meaning of a metaphor was not recalled better than a literal interpretation of the same target sentence. It is concluded that metaphorical and literal sentences utilize separate perceptual and selectional decoding strategies, but do not differ with respect to comprehension processes once metaphorical and literal referents are instantiated. Discussion is given as to whether these differences constitute a separate metaphor strategy.Shinjo and Myers also described a fourth component process,retrieval, involved in the foregrounding of prime words used in their experiments.     

Responding to indirect speech acts

Indirect speech acts, like the request Do you know the time?, have both a literal meaning, here “I ask you whether you know the time,” and an indirect meaning “I request you to tell me the time.” In this paper I outline a model of how listeners understand such speech acts and plan responses to them. The main proposals are these. The literal meaning of indirect speech acts can be intended to be taken seriously (along with the indirect meaning) or merely pro forma. In the first case listeners are expected to respond to both meanings, as in Yes, I do—it's six, but in the second case only to the indirect meaning, as in It's six. There are at least six sources of information listeners use in judging whether the literal meaning was intended seriously or pro forma, as well as whether there was intended to be any indirect meaning. These proposals were supported in five experiments in which ordinary requests for information were made by telephone of 950 local merchants.     

Comprehension and memory for nonliteral utterances: The problem of sarcastic indirect requests

Three experiments examined understanding and memory for sarcastic indirect requests. Experiment 1 showed that people process sarcastic indirect requests, like I sure love a messy room (meaning ‘Clean up this room’), faster than they comprehend either literal uses of the same sentences, or nonsarcastic indirect requests, like Would you clean up your room? This suggests that people can understand sarcastic utterances without having to analyze the literal meanings of these expressions before figuring out their sarcastic interpretations. The results of experiment 2 showed that people better recognize sarcastic indirect requests than they do nonsarcastic ones. Experiment 3 ruled out the possibility that subjects remembered sarcastic expressions best because of any special intonation properties associated with these utterances. Overall, the results of these studies support the idea that sarcastic utterances are not necessarily more difficult to understand in conversation and that their special pragmatic properties makes them particularly memorable.     

The comprehension of familiar and less familiar idioms

The relationship between idiom familiarity and idiom comprehension was investigated. Familiar and less familiar idioms were presented in three types of sentences. The sentences were biased toward the idiom's literal meaning, biased toward the idiom's idiomatic meaning, or unbiased toward either meaning. Reading times for sentences containing less familiar idioms were longer than for sentences containing familiar idioms, but there was no significant main effect for sentence type. The familiarity by sentence type interaction was significant. In literal sentences, less familiar idioms required more reading time than familiar idioms. In idiomatic sentences, less familiar idioms required more reading time than familiar idioms. The results are interpreted as being consistent with the idiomatic processing model, which proposes that processing of an idiom's idiomatic meaning precedes processing of its literal meaning.     

汉语隐喻理解时程的ERPs研究

摘 要 本研究使用ERPs技术考察隐喻句与本义句理解时程的异同,以研究汉语隐喻的理解机制。以句尾范式向被试随机呈现本义句、熟悉隐喻句、新奇隐喻句及错误义句各50句,被试的任务为判断每句话是否有意义。结果显示：两种隐喻句诱发的N400波形与头皮分布情况和本义句无明显差异,且两种隐喻句诱发的N400波幅高于本义句。本研究结果证明汉语隐喻义和本义理解的认知机制类似,支持隐喻理解的平行加工假说,且加工隐喻义需要耗费更多的认知资源。     

Deriving meaning: Distinct neural mechanisms for metaphoric, literal, and non-meaningful sentences

In this study, we used a novel cognitive paradigm and event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (ER-fMRI) to investigate the neural substrates involved in processing three different types of sentences. Participants read either metaphoric (Some surgeons are butchers), literal (Some surgeons are fathers), or non-meaningful sentences (Some surgeons are shelves) and had to decide whether they made sense or not. We demonstrate that processing of the different sentence types relied on distinct neural mechanisms. Activation of the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG), BA 47, was shared by both non-meaningful and metaphoric sentences but not by literal sentences. Furthermore, activation of the left thalamus appeared to be specifically involved in deriving meaning from metaphoric sentences despite lack of reaction times differences between literals and metaphors. We assign this to the ad hoc concept construction and open-endedness of metaphoric interpretation. In contrast to previous studies, our results do not support the view the right hemispheric is specifically involved in metaphor comprehension.     

熟悉性对汉语隐喻义与本义加工机制的影响

采用句子违反范式考察汉语隐喻义与本义加工机制的差异及隐喻熟悉性的调节作用。要求被试阅读不同熟悉性的隐喻和本义句子并判断句子正确性,记录其行为与脑电反应。结果显示,熟悉句子隐喻义的加工显著快于本义的加工,而新奇句子则本义的加工更快;脑电水平上,对于熟悉句子,隐喻义违反比本义违反诱发增强的N400和降低的P600效应,而对于新奇句子,隐喻义和本义违反诱发出基本类似的ERP反应。这些结果表明隐喻义和本义加工存在差异,熟悉性显著影响隐喻义的加工,这种影响在较早语义分析和较晚的语义整合阶段均有体现。     

前后语境在汉语成语义识别中的作用

通过自定步速阅读实验研究发现,语境前后位置对成语义识别有显著性影响,且影响方式和程度存在差异,符合多义词重组通达模型。根据动态自组织模式,句子中的成语义识别至少包括多种潜在词义启动和与语境倾向义匹配两个过程。前置语境对成语比喻义通达具有预设作用,加速或抑制成语比喻义通达;而后置语境则在句子语义整合过程中对成语比喻义起到返查纠偏的作用。     

语义分解性在惯用语理解中的作用

惯用语是比喻性语言的一种。语义分解性的作用是惯用语理解机制争论的焦点。通过语义启动任务, 探究了汉语动宾结构的惯用语和偏正结构的惯用语的意义理解模式, 揭示语义分解性在短的SOA (300 ms)和长的SOA (800 ms)下的作用。结果发现, 语义分解性独立地影响惯用语的意义激活：当SOA短时, 语义高分解的两类惯用语均表现出显著的字面义激活效应; 当SOA长时, 语义低分解的偏正结构的惯用语的意义激活的正确率优势明显。同时, 两类惯用语的语义分解性不同导致了语义激活启动效应的差异：当SOA短时, 语义低分解的动宾结构的惯用语存在两种意义的激活效应, 语义高分解的动宾结构的惯用语和偏正结构的惯用语存在字面义的激活效应; 当SOA长时, 语义低分解的动宾结构的惯用语存在两种意义的激活效应, 语义高分解的偏正结构的惯用语存在比喻义的激活效应。研究证实语义分解性在惯用语加工早期即发挥作用, 在加工晚期, 语义高分解的动宾结构的惯用语的多种意义同时激活削弱了两种意义的启动优势。整个研究结果支持惯用语理解的混合表征模型和层级显性意义假说。     

Spared access to idiomatic and literal meanings: a single-case approach

The current study examines how patients with aphasia access the meanings of idioms during spoken sentence comprehension. In our experiment, we had 4 subjects whose native language is German: 2 left-hemisphere damaged patients (Wernicke's and global aphasia); 1 right-hemisphere damaged patient; and 1 age-matched healthy speaker. Ambiguous two-element German noun compounds carrying an idiomatic as well as a literal meaning served as target words. While listening to contextually biasing sentences containing the target words, the subjects performed a lexical decision task at the offset of each compound. All the subjects, including the aphasic patients, accessed the compounds' literal and idiomatic meanings simultaneously despite the existence of contextually biasing sentences. The data are discussed by taking account of the findings of recent studies of lexical semantic processing in aphasia.     

On the process of understanding idioms

This paper presents arguments against the idea that people normally analyze the literal meanings of idiomatic expressions during understanding. A number of empirical studies are reviewed which suggest that people do not compute the literal interpretations of idioms either before or simultaneous to comprehending their figurative meanings. This seems particularly true given that many idiomatic expressions do not have well-defined literal meanings. Finally, it is suggested that although idioms are understood directly as if single words, it is premature to accept the idea that all idioms are represented with equal status in the lexicon.Preparation of this paper was supported by a Faculty Research Grant from University of California, Santa Cruz. I thank Gayle Gonzales for her comments on a draft of this paper.     

Event-related potentials indicate context effect in reading ambiguous words

The aim of the study was a comparison of lexical and contextual factors in understanding ambiguous words in German. First, a sample of native speakers selected 56 words having maximally strong differences between a dominant and a subordinate meaning. After this, another sample from the same population was visually presented with sentences that activated dominant or subordinate meanings of the words and were accompanied by probes associated with dominant or subordinate meanings. This resulted in a crossed design with two factors: sentence dominant vs. sentence subordinate and probe dominant vs. probe subordinate. An analysis of event-related brain potentials revealed a large, long-lasting and highly-significant N400 wave whenever the meaning of the probe was incongruent with the meaning of the sentence and the lack of this wave whenever the two meanings were congruent. In the typical N400 space and time, the effect was independent of whether the lexical word meaning was dominant or subordinate. At other sites and times, however (e.g., at lateral frontal electrodes F7/F8, and after 700 ms), the congruence effect was significant after dominant sentences only. The data indicate that lexical factors have a rather limited influence on the activation of a particular meaning of ambiguous words. A strong context can virtually override even a very strong difference in the preference for different meanings.     

The role of imagery,analogy, and instantiation in proverb comprehension

The role of imagery, analogy, and instantiation in understanding proverbs was examined in the light of the Conceptual Base Theory (CBT). The CBT proposes that proverb comprehension involves four phases and that (a) after Problem Recognition, imagery is often used during the Literal Transformation Phase with the intention of constructing a figurative meaning but that imagery does not enter into this meaning; (b) figurative meaning is the solution to a four-part, a:b::c:d, analogy, which occurs during the Figurative Phase; (c) the Instantiation Phase can be entered only if a figurative meaning is constructed, but once instantiation occurs it serves to refine this meaning. A transfer paradigm was used to test these hypotheses. During acquisition, the subjects were presented proverbs and given rating tasks in connection with one of the following: pictures that illustrated the literal proverb information (picture groups), instructions to image the literal proverb information (imagery groups), or analogies involving literala andb terms drawn from the proverb andc andd terms that constituted an interpretation of the proverb (analogy group), concrete verbal instances that illustrated the proverbs' figurative meanings (instance group), or an analogy and an instance (analogy-instance group). During transfer, all subjects attempted to distinguish between novel sentences that were either positive or negative instances of the figurative meaning of the acquisition proverbs. The picture and imagery groups, which were assumed to have used imagery without the intention of constructing a figurative meaning, performed at chance. The analogy group performed above chance and on a par with the instance group subjects, who theoretically had constructed and solved an implicit analogy. The analogy-instance group showed superior performance. Discussion centered on the pattern of the results in relation to the CBT and on the role of imagery and analogy in understanding proverbs as opposed to metaphors.The authors wish to thank Suzanne Leake for help in designing the experiment, preparing materials, and running subjects.     

What Are You Really Saying? Associations between Shyness and Verbal Irony Comprehension

Verbal irony exploits the ambiguity inherent in language by using the discrepancy between a speaker's intended meaning and the literal meaning of his or her words to achieve social goals. Irony provides a window into children's developing pragmatic competence. Yet, little research exists on individual differences that may disrupt this understanding. For example, verbal irony may challenge shy children, who tend to interpret ambiguous stimuli as being threatening and who have difficulty mentalizing in social contexts. We examined whether shyness is related to the interpretation of ironic statements. Ninety‐nine children (8–12 year olds) listened to stories wherein one character made either a literal or ironic criticism or a literal or ironic compliment. Children appraised the speaker's belief and communicative intention. Shyness was assessed using self‐report measures of social anxiety symptoms and shy negative affect. Shyness was not related to children's comprehension of the counterfactual nature of ironic statements. However, shyness was related to children's ratings of speaker meanness for ironic statements. Thus, although not related to the understanding that speakers intended to communicate their true beliefs, shyness was related to children's construal of the social meaning of irony. Such subtle differences in language interpretation may underlie some of the social difficulties facing shy children. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

高功能孤独症者非字面语义理解缺陷：隐喻视角的ERP研究

研究采用事件相关电位技术从隐喻语义理解角度考察了高功能孤独症成人非字面语义理解中的行为特点及脑半球参与模式。行为结果显示：高功能孤独症成人对新异隐喻句的反应时最长,两类隐喻句的反应时均长于普通成人,但错误率上两组被试间无差异。脑电结果显示：高功能孤独症组对新异隐喻句的N400波幅最大,未出现半球偏侧化现象,传统隐喻句在左半球的N400波幅大于右半球,两类隐喻句的N400波幅均大于正常被试。结论：高功能孤独症成人具备隐喻理解能力,并对新异隐喻的理解做出更多努力,但右脑功能异常仍旧存在,左右半球在总体功能或神经联通性上仍旧弱于常人。     

Idiom literality judgments in younger and older adults: age-related effects in resolving semantic interference

To study age effects in the resolution of idiomatic semantic ambiguity, we focus on decomposability, the extent to which a literal reading of an idiom's words shares meaning with its figurative interpretation. Younger and older adults judged whether decomposable and nondecomposable idioms and nonidioms had a literal interpretation. Older adults were slower at making literality judgments and more sensitive to conflicts between literal and figurative meanings. The results support claims of decompositional analysis of idioms during later processing stages and of obligatory activation of figurative meanings. They also lend support to research that has shown age-related effects in ambiguity resolution.