Center for Studies of Psychological Application, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China.
Neuropsychologia. 2012 Jul;50(8):1730-8. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2012.03.027. Epub 2012 Apr 25.
Among different types of metaphors, lexical metaphors are special in that they have been highly lexicalized and often suggested to be processed like non-metaphorical words. The present study examined two types of Chinese metaphorical words which are conceptualized through body parts. One has both a metaphorical meaning and a literal meaning actively in use, with the former dominant over the latter, referred to as the Met+Lit words. The other has only metaphorical meaning, referred to as Met-only words. In two experiments, lexical metaphor words were presented following a body-related picture and participants judged whether the picture and word were semantically related (Experiment 1) or made lexical decision on the word ignoring the picture (Experiment 2). The N400 ERP responses showed a clear semantic priming effect for the Met+Lit words compared with the non-ambiguous neutral words, with latencies comparable to that in Met-only words in both experiments. The results were interpreted to indicate that the literal meaning as a subordinate meaning was activated during the early comprehension of conventional lexical metaphors, supporting the notion of dual access to metaphorical meaning and literal meaning in metaphor processing.
在不同类型的隐喻中，词汇隐喻是特殊的，因为它们已经高度词汇化，并且常常被认为是像非隐喻性词语一样被处理。本研究考察了两种通过身体部位概念化的汉语隐喻词。一种词具有隐喻意义和字面意义，且前者比后者更占主导地位，被称为“Met+Lit 词”。另一种词只有隐喻意义，被称为“Met-only 词”。在两个实验中，词汇隐喻词在与身体相关的图片之后呈现，参与者判断图片和词是否在语义上相关（实验 1），或者在忽略图片的情况下对词进行词汇判断（实验 2）。N400 ERP 反应表明，与非歧义中性词相比，Met+Lit 词具有明显的语义启动效应，在两个实验中与 Met-only 词的潜伏期相当。这些结果表明，在常规词汇隐喻的早期理解过程中，字面意义作为次要意义被激活，支持隐喻处理中隐喻意义和字面意义的双重访问的观点。
