Mapping Principles in the Processing of Conceptual Metaphors
Date Issued
2009
Date
2009
Author(s)
Gong, Shu-Ping
Abstract
This research investigates how metaphors construct conceptual mappings between domains. We evaluate three mapping accounts: the category-based account (i.e., the Attribution Categorization Model), the alignment-based account (i.e., the Structural Mapping Model), and the principle-based account (i.e., the Conceptual Mapping Model). In this study, two types of novel metaphor sentences were examined: novel metaphor sentences following mapping principles and novel metaphor sentences not following mapping principles. We propose that the principle-based account can explain how metaphors are processed. We predict that people will use the mapping principles to process metaphors. In addition, it is hypothesized that context affects whether mapping principles will be accessed when people comprehend novel metaphors.our experiments (i.e., a metaphor paraphrasing task and three reading tasks) support the principle-based account. Experiment 1 examined how metaphors were paraphrased. We found that participants produced paraphrases relating to mapping principles more frequently than those not relating to mapping principles. This suggests that participants used mapping principles to paraphrase metaphors.xperiments 2 and 3 used a timed reading measure to examine whether context affects the access of mapping principles in understanding metaphors. In Experiment 2, we found that participants processed novel metaphor sentences following mapping principles as slowly as those not following mapping principles in the integration of novel metaphor sentences into domain-incongruent discourse. The reading times between two types of sentences did not reach significant difference. However, in Experiment 3, we found that participants comprehended novel metaphor sentences following mapping principles faster than those not following mapping principles in the integration of novel metaphor sentences into domain-congruent discourse. The reading times between two types of sentences reached significant difference. Experiment 4 also used a timed reading measure to examine whether participants access mapping principles for processing novel metaphor sentences without prior context. The results showed that the novel metaphor sentences were read as slow as those not following mapping principles. The reading time between two types of sentence conditions did not reach significant difference.he results of three reading tasks show that relevant contextual information can facilitate the comprehension of novel metaphor sentences following mapping principles. However, irrelevant contextual information or no prior context can not affect the processing of both types of novel metaphor sentences. The results are consistent with that the principle-based account that novel metaphor sentences following mapping principles are processed faster than those not following mapping principles in certain conditions.his study supports the Conceptual Mapping Model that participants use mapping principles to interpret and comprehend novel metaphors. In addition, this work demonstrates that prior context differently impacts the processing of two types of novel metaphors: novel metaphor sentences following mapping principles, because their meanings are interpretable and are easily integrated into discourse, are affected by prior context; in contrast, novel metaphors not following mapping principles, because their meanings are less interpretable and are not easily integrated into discourse, are not affected by prior context.
Subjects
Conceptual Mapping Model
metaphors in Mandarin Chinese
metaphor paraphrases
context
sentences processing
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