Non-linguistic components of metaphor understanding, namely, emotions and mental images have recently received attention within neurolinguistics and cognitive pragmatics, suggesting a role in differential representation and processing of language: metaphors are considered richer in affective connotations than their lexical or sentential non-emotional counterparts (e.g., Citron & Goldberg, 2014; Mohammad et al., 2016) and images may be used as vehicles in the recovery of propositional effects (Carston, 2010). Given the above findings as well as neuroscientific evidence supporting automatic and early processing of emotional language content (see Citron, 2012 for a review), the current study explored the impact of emotionally loaded content versus its synonymous non-emotional meaning on the understanding of metaphors. To this end, we tested the performance of seventy-four highly proficient Greek-English bilinguals (average age = 23.7, SD = 6.9) on a computer-based reading comprehension and a priming-like, meaning-matching task. We manipulated the nature of prime sentences (emotional vs. non-emotional) in relation to metaphor-target sentences and measured participants’ reaction time (RT). Specifically, participants would read sentences like Obama presided over a topic of discussion of amazing / historic proportions and decide whether they understood the meaning by pressing a key for “YES” or “NO”. Then a second sentence would appear, Obama presided over a topic of discussion of epochal proportions, which participants would read and decide whether it matched in meaning the previous one. We hypothesized that if emotion-laden words (amazing) enhanced online metaphorical meaning, this should be reflected in faster processing (RTs) for target sentences preceded by emotional than non-emotional sentences. On the other hand, if emotional content required more resources to process, then the opposite pattern should be yielded. Finally, if emotionally loaded sentences, which are assumed to activate rich inferential processes, contributed to the same extent as non-emotionally ones to understanding metaphorical meaning, no difference should be yielded between the two conditions. Our results confirmed the third prediction, as the analysis of reaction time on correct responses in the meaning-matching task did not yield a statistically significant effect: M = 7.5s for emotional and M = 7.3s for non-emotional; p > .05. Reading comprehension times across the two conditions did not differ either; M = 14.1s and M = 14.4s, respectively; p > .05. We discuss our findings in the context of ordinary processing of metaphors (Carston, 2010), while also considering aspects of English as a Foreign Language (EFL).  

 

 

 

Selected References

 

Carston, R. (2010). Metaphor: Ad hoc concepts, literal meaning and mental images. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 110, 295-321.

Citron, F. M. & Goldberg, A. E. (2014). Metaphorical sentences are more emotionally engaging than their literal counterparts. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 26, 2585-2595. 

Mohammad, S. M., Shutova, E., & Turney, P. (2016). Metaphor as a Medium for Emotion: An Empirical Study. In Proceedings of the Joint Conference on Lexical and Computational Semantics (Sem), August 2016, Berlin, Germany.