Effects of categorical dissimilarity and affective similarity between constituent words on metaphor appreciation

This study examines the effects of categorical and affective similarities between the constituent words of sentence (Noun-A is like Noun-B) on metaphor appreciation. In the preliminary studies using 48 words to be used later, the two kinds of similarity were measured separately by either sorting or semantic differential technique. In the main study, a set of five rating tasks concerning three types of formulaic sentences (literal, metaphorical, and anomalous) was given for each of 28 subjects in relation to (a) similarity between the words in a pairing, (b) similarity of the words in a particular formulaic sentence, (c) sentence comprehensibility, (d) sentence novelty, and (e) metaphor aptness. The application of path analysis for the above data revealed the following: (1) Categorical dissimilarity affects novelty [N], (2) affective similarity influences comprehensibility [C], and (3) [N] and [C] affect metaphor aptness.A portion of the results was reported at the First Annual Conference of the Japanese Cognitive Science Society, Kyoto, July 1984.     

Grading the ‘cultural literacy’ project

The essay examines the argument advanced by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., for instituting ‘cultural literacy’ as a fundamental priority of schools. A number of confusions and equivocations in Hirsch's reasoning are identified, and the propensity of his project to indoctrinate is exposed. Among the features of Hirsch's argument shown to be troubling are his shifting construal of ‘language’, his inconsistency about the requirements of cultural literacy, and his uncritical relation to traditional images of the American past and present. The upshot is to raise the question why Hirsch's project has elicited wide support and praise.