Horton William S
Department of Psychology, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208-2710, USA.
Mem Cognit. 2007 Jan;35(1):87-94. doi: 10.3758/bf03195945.
Previous theorists have suggested that figurative language may be an especially salient means by which speakers and addressees establish and recognize specific feelings of interpersonal closeness. To explore readers' sensitivity to this interpersonal function of figurative language use, brief stories were created that described interactions between two ambiguously related characters. In the course of these conversational narratives, one character always used either a metaphoric or literal referring expression to refer to some antecedent information from the story. Across three experiments, readers consistently judged these story characters as knowing each other better when their interactions contained metaphoric references. Moreover, this occurred even when addressees failed to give explicit evidence of having understood the critical expressions. To the extent that language use highlights assumptions about commonalities, readers may generate inferences about social relationships alongside more meaning-driven comprehension processes.
先前的理论家认为，比喻性语言可能是说话者和听话者建立并识别特定人际亲密感的一种特别显著的方式。为了探究读者对使用比喻性语言的这种人际功能的敏感度，创作了一些简短的故事，描述两个关系模糊的角色之间的互动。在这些对话式叙述过程中，一个角色总是使用隐喻性或字面性的指代表达来提及故事中的一些前文信息。在三个实验中，当故事角色的互动包含隐喻性指代时，读者始终认为他们彼此更了解。此外，即使听话者没有给出理解关键表达的明确证据，这种情况也会发生。就语言使用突出关于共性的假设而言，读者可能会在更受意义驱动的理解过程中同时产生关于社会关系的推断。
