Jankowiak Katarzyna, Rataj Karolina, Naskręcki Ryszard
Faculty of English, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poznań, Poland.
NanoBioMedical Centre, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poznań, Poland.
PLoS One. 2017 Apr 17;12(4):e0175578. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0175578. eCollection 2017.
Though metaphoric language comprehension has previously been investigated with event-related potentials, little attention has been devoted to extending this research from the monolingual to the bilingual context. In the current study, late proficient unbalanced Polish (L1)-English (L2) bilinguals performed a semantic decision task to novel metaphoric, conventional metaphoric, literal, and anomalous word pairs presented in L1 and L2. The results showed more pronounced P200 amplitudes to L2 than L1, which can be accounted for by differences in the subjective frequency of the native and non-native lexical items. Within the early N400 time window (300-400 ms), L2 word dyads evoked delayed and attenuated amplitudes relative to L1 word pairs, possibly indicating extended lexical search during foreign language processing, and weaker semantic interconnectivity for L2 compared to L1 words within the memory system. The effect of utterance type was observed within the late N400 time window (400-500 ms), with smallest amplitudes evoked by literal, followed by conventional metaphoric, novel metaphoric, and anomalous word dyads. Such findings are interpreted as reflecting more resource intensive cognitive mechanisms governing novel compared to conventional metaphor comprehension in both the native and non-native language. Within the late positivity time window (500-800 ms), Polish novel metaphors evoked reduced amplitudes relative to literal utterances. In English, on the other hand, this effect was observed for both novel and conventional metaphoric word dyads. This finding might indicate continued effort in information retrieval or access to the non-literal route during novel metaphor comprehension in L1, and during novel and conventional metaphor comprehension in L2. Altogether, the present results point to decreased automaticity of cognitive mechanisms engaged in non-native and non-dominant language processing, and suggest a decreased sensitivity to the levels of conventionality of metaphoric meanings in late proficient unbalanced bilingual speakers.
尽管之前已经通过事件相关电位对隐喻性语言理解进行了研究，但很少有人致力于将这项研究从单语环境扩展到双语环境。在当前的研究中，晚期熟练的非平衡波兰语（第一语言）-英语（第二语言）双语者对用第一语言和第二语言呈现的新颖隐喻、传统隐喻、字面和异常词对执行了语义判断任务。结果显示，与第一语言相比，第二语言的P200波幅更明显，这可以用母语和非母语词汇项目的主观频率差异来解释。在早期N400时间窗口（300 - 400毫秒）内，与第一语言词对相比，第二语言词对诱发的波幅延迟且减弱，这可能表明在外语处理过程中词汇搜索时间延长，并且与第一语言词相比，第二语言词在记忆系统中的语义关联性较弱。在晚期N400时间窗口（400 - 500毫秒）内观察到了话语类型的影响，字面词对诱发的波幅最小，其次是传统隐喻、新颖隐喻和异常词对。这些发现被解释为反映了在母语和非母语中，与传统隐喻理解相比，理解新颖隐喻需要更多资源密集型的认知机制。在晚期正波时间窗口（500 - 800毫秒）内，波兰语新颖隐喻相对于字面话语诱发的波幅降低。另一方面，在英语中，新颖和传统隐喻词对都观察到了这种效应。这一发现可能表明，在第一语言中理解新颖隐喻以及在第二语言中理解新颖和传统隐喻时，在信息检索或采用非字面路径方面仍在持续努力。总之，目前的结果表明，参与非母语和非优势语言处理的认知机制的自动性降低，并且表明晚期熟练的非平衡双语者对隐喻意义的常规程度水平的敏感性降低。
