An ERP Approach To The Construal Mechanism Of Chinese Euphemism

Euphemism is common,and it has been widely used.Many researches on euphemism have been done by scholars at home and abroad from dimensions of definition,historic and cultural background,sociopsychology,classification,formation,pragmatics,cognition,and comparison between Chinese and English euphemism,etc.Previous researches are fruitful and highly valuable,but there are still shortcomings.For example,repetition phenomenon of study is common and most studies are not in-depth;scholars abroad have done empirical studies of euphemism with English materials and limited to English speaking countries.There have been some studies using ERP technique to testify the Annotation-Denotation Relevance-Inheritance Model from perspectives of Chinese irony,metonymy,metaphor,pun,and hyperbole etc.They provide electro psychological evidence for the affordance retrieval process in the construal of Chinese rhetoric,while there is not any study of Chinese euphemism comprehension to explore the ADRIM.Is there a process of affordance information retrieval during Chinese euphemism comprehension? This thesis intends to provide evidence for the affordance retrieval process in the construal of Chinese euphemism by an ERP experiment.The ERP experiment used one-factor within-subjects design with three levels(critical sentence types: euphemistic sentences,literal sentences,and irrelevant sentences).Thirty groups of sentences were chosen carefully as experimental materials,within which two groups were practice materials.Subjects were twenty-four postgraduate students at Sichuan International Studies University.They were all Chinese native speakers.The experimental process was as follows: a context sentence was presented first,followed by a critical sentence(this sentence may be a euphemistic sentence,a literal sentence or an irrelevant sentence),and then probe words were presented.Subjects were asked to judge whether the probe words were true or false.A declarative sentence was presented at last.Subjects’ task was to judgewhether this declarative sentence was consistent with the context sentence and critical sentence appeared in front of it.This experiment was conducted in the Key Lab of Cognitive Neuroscience and Foreign Language Learning at Sichuan International Studies University.Experimental materials and process was designed and programmed by E-prime2.0.Behavioral data and EEG data were collected by Neruoscan4.5 and Syn Amps2.At last,repeated measures ANOVAs,paired samples T test were done by SPSS16.0.Experimental results were as follows:(1)The grand average response time of probe words under irrelevant sentence conditions was the longest,1052.53ms;the shorter one was under euphemistic sentence conditions,915.69ms;the shortest of the three was under literal sentence conditions,only 906.14 ms.The grand average reaction time of probe words under euphemistic and literal conditions had no significant difference [t(18)=.110,p=.915>.05],while it was significantly different under irrelevant and euphemistic sentence conditions [t(18)=-1.325,p=.028<.05],and under irrelevant and literal sentence conditions it was also significantly different [t(18)=-1.185,p=.041<.05].(2)The grand average amplitudes of N100 and N400 elicited by the judgement of probe words were the largest under irrelevant sentence conditions;the second largest amplitudes of N100 and N400 elicited by the judgement of probe words were under euphemistic sentence conditions and the smallest amplitudes of N100 and N400 elicited by the judgement of probe words were under literal sentence conditions;results of paired samples T test had shown significant difference between each two.The grand average amplitudes of P200 elicited by the judgement of probe words were the largest under literal sentence conditions;the second largest amplitudes of P200 elicited by the judgement of probe words were under euphemistic sentence conditions and the smallest amplitudes of P200 elicited by the judgement of probe words were under irrelevant sentence conditions;results of paired samples T test had shown significant difference between each two.(3)Amplitudes of N100 elicited by the judgement of probe words under euphemistic sentence conditions and literal sentence conditions had significant difference in right central region [t(18)=-2.331,p=.040<.05].Amplitudes of N100 elicited by the judgement of probe words under literal euphemistic sentence conditions versus irrelevant sentence conditions had significant difference in left parietal region [t(18)=2.837,p=.016<.05],and midline parietal region [t(18)=2.393,p=.036<.05].(4)Amplitudes of P200 elicited by the judgement of probe words under euphemistic sentence conditions and irrelevant sentence conditions had significant difference in right parietal region [t(18)=3.024,p=.012<.05].Amplitudes of P200 elicited by the judgement of probe words under literal sentence conditions versus irrelevant sentence conditions had significant difference in left central region [t(18)=2.573,p=.026<.05],midline central region [t(18)=2.579,p=.026<.05],right frontal region [t(18)=2.564,p=.026<.05],right parietal region [t(18)=3.383,p=.006<.05],midline parietal region [t(18)=3.493,p=.005<.05],and midline frontal region [t(18)=2.411,p=.035<.05].(5)Amplitudes of N400 elicited by the judgement of probe words under literal sentence conditions versus irrelevant sentence conditions had significant difference in left central region [t(18)=2.227,p=.048<.05].(6)Common euphemistic expressions have gradually become stereotypical expressions,so its construal process is not significantly different with literal expressions.Nowadays,literal expressions look strange and silly because of their low frequent appearance.Conclusions are as follows:The construal of Chinese euphemism promotes the judgment of probe words.And affordance retrieval process exists during Chinese euphemism comprehension.This thesis provides evidence of psychological reality for the affordance retrieval in the construal of Chinese euphemism;thus it supports the Annotation-Denotation Relevance-Inheritance Model in the construal of Chinese rhetoric discourse(Liao Qiaoyun,2015).