A Psycholinguistic Study Of Simile And Metaphor

Different from the dominant theories of metaphor comprehension, the comparison view, the categorization view and the conceptual metaphor theory, the present study first claims that simile and metaphor are not equivalent, but their distinction is not mediated by one key factor, as argued by the conventionality hypothesis or the aptness model, but by multi-factors such as different types of predicates, similarities, the role of vehicle, familiarity, and semantic meanings of topic-vehicle pairing. Then based on the experimental results, it proposes an alternative non-equivalent model.In order to explore how the two figurative expressions are related to or distinct with each other psychologically, the research employed 50 matched sets of metaphors and similes as stimuli, their very basic and common form: A is (like) B in the isolated context. Three hundred and thirty-two freshmen of non-English majors from Taiyuan University of Technology participated in the four questionnaire surveys but with uneven numbers in each. They were asked to perform such tasks as choosing simile-metaphor preference, listing share-features, rating holistic similarity, discrete-point similarity, familiarity, the role of vehicle in property-attribution and comprehensibility of reversed orders of topic-vehicle pairs.The experiments show that simile is preferred if topic and vehicle are both realized by concrete nouns. They share fewer common features, less familiarity, more symmetry in property-matching and more reversibility in topic-vehicle order. Besides, attributive property is more easily mapped in simile. On the contrary, metaphor is preferred if topic and vehicle are realized one by an abstract noun and the other a concrete noun. They have more common features, more familiarity and more asymmetry and less reversibility. The property easily mapped in metaphor is relational.The experiments also show that the distinctions between simile and metaphor are not clear-cut, though they are distinct. They are overlapping and often interchangeable to some extent. Based on the discussion of different factors, an alternative theoretical model is proposed to explain their non-equivalence, i.e. the distinction between simile and metaphor is not a dichotomy, but a continuum. It is not a dichotomy since both are concerned with the same cross-domain mappings, and it is a continuum since the increase of one characteristic in one trope means the corresponding decrease in the other.For those strongly preferred similes or metaphors, they can be considered as the best examples of each category because they have the prototypical characteristics, which gradually fade into their marginal examples. The prototypical simile is a concrete-concrete attribution-mapped pairing characterized by the fewest similarities, the least familiarity and the most symmetry and reversibility, whereas the prototypical metaphor is an abstract-concrete relation-mapped pairing characterized by the most similarities, the most familiarity and the most asymmetry and non-reversibility. Between the two prototypes is the overlapping area of peripheral or marginal simile and metaphor, the intermediate level. Whether the peripheral simile or metaphor can turn into its prototype is related to the increase or decrease of its prototypical characteristics. They are in the dynamic process along the same continuum.The dynamic model proposed here offers a different perspective to the non-equivalent view, which can not only reasonably explain the distinction between simile and metaphor, but also their interchangeability. It is instructive to a better and comprehensive understanding of the two.