Is Chinese Metaphor Comprehension Mediated By The Literal Meaning?

Metaphor has long been thought as a rhetorical approach. In Western countries, the research on metaphor can be traced back to Aristotle. With the publication of Lackoff and Johnson's book Metaphor we live by (1980), metaphor, as a cognitive device, was focused on. The deeper understanding of this language phenomenon gives rise to more and more questions on different levels. Among them, the role of literal meaning in metaphor comprehension is prominent.Generally speaking, there are three diverse views on the access to metaphorical meaning: sequential access, direct access and dual access. The core issue is whether or not the literal meaning plays the mediating role in the comprehension of metaphors. Chinese, with a great number of learners and wide use in world affair, was chosen to be the target language. Meanwhile, present studies on Chinese figurative language concentrate on the comprehension of Chinese idioms and the research on Chinese metaphors with empirical evidences is rare.This research focuses on Chinese metaphors in the form of "A 是 B" (A is B). It is hypothesized that the comprehension of insufficiently conventionalized (low conventional) Chinese metaphors is mediated by the access to the literal meaning, but the comprehension of highly conventionalized (high conventional) Chinese metaphors is not.