An ERPs Approach To The Possible Feature Derivation In The Construction Of English Metaphor In The Form Of A Is B

As a time-honored rhetoric device,metaphor is frequently used in our daily life,which means that people are inclined to regard one thing as another.Because of its unique vivid expressive force and pragmatic effect,a large number of scholars have been interested in it and a large number of scholars have approached metaphor from rhetoric,stylistics,linguistics and so on.With the increasing and steady advancement of cognitive linguistics,cognitive linguistics provides a new angle for the study of metaphor,which means hat metaphor is no longer seen as a traditional figure of speech,but a cognitive method to explore the world.In a traditional theoretical way,linguists mainly investigate metaphor's nature,working mechanism,etc;meanwhile,scholars have drawn endless inspiration from nuero-scientific techniques.At present,some researches have been conducted on metaphor by using ERPs,f MRI and reaction time techniques.Based on the Annotation-Denotation Relevance-Inheritance Model(ADRIM)put forward by Liao Qiaoyun(2015),the present study is aimed to explore whether there exist any electrophysiological evidence to support the psychological reality of possible feature derivation in the construction of English metaphor? The participants are 24 English-major postgraduates from Sichuan International Studies University,including 4 males and 20 females.Although numerous metaphor related issues have been discussed in many empirical studies,no elecrophysiological study with English metaphor focusing on ADRIM has been found yet.The study has been finished in the Key Lab of Cognitive Neuroscience and Foreign Language Learning in Sichuan International Studies University.The materials are English and are presented randomly.The task of subjects is to read and interpret the sentences within fixed time,and then judge the probe words presented after the sentences as true or false with corresponding buttons(F–true;J–false).The software E-prime is used to present the materials in the experiment,and computer is used to record the response and the response time,and results are collected and recorded by the software Neuroscan 4.5.Then,the ERPs data are treated by the off-line analysis and the results are analyzed by statistic software SPSS 19.0.The research obtains the following results:(1)According to the behavioral data,the reaction time of probe words is 1239.72 ms in metaphorical sentence,1182.03 ms in literal sentence,and 1262.32 ms in nonsensical sentence.Difference lies in when understanding the metaphorical sentences,the subjects are in need of spending more time in extracting the possible features which is shared by the tenor and vehicle.Hence,under the metaphorical sentence condition,the reaction time is longer than that of literal sentence.Significant differences can be seen in terms of the reaction time of probe words between metaphorical sentence and literal sentence [t(19)=6.157,p=.000<.01].Marginal differences can be seen in terms of the reaction time of probe words between literal sentence and nonsensical sentence [t(19)=-3.441,p=.003<.01].No significant difference can be seen in terms of metaphorical sentence and nonsensical sentence [t(19)=1.612,p=.123>.05].The difference among accuracy of judgment in three conditions is not significant.The results of behavioral data can support the psychological reality of possible feature extraction in the comprehension of English metaphor.(2)The ERPs data shows that the amplitude of N400 elicited by the probe words in nonsensical sentence is the largest than that in metaphorical sentence and literal sentence.Significant difference exists in the amplitude of N400 elicited by the probe words between the metaphorical sentence and nonsensical sentence.These differences lie in left frontal region [t(19)=3.778,p=.001<.01],[t(19)=2.969,p=.008<.01],in right frontal region [t(19)=3.197,p=.005<.01],[t(19)=3.087,p=.006<.01].And also lie in central region,including the left central region [t(19)= 2.288,p=.034<.05] and in the right central region [t(19)=2.440,p=.025<.05].In addition,significant differences can be seen in the amplitude of N400 elicited by the probe words between the literal sentence and nonsensical sentence.Differences lie in the left frontal region [t(19)=4.321,p=.000<.001],[t(19)=6.098,p=.000<.001],the right frontal region [t(19)=3.918,p=.001<.01].And in the central region,including the left central region [t(19)=4.427,p=.001<.01] and the right central region [t(19)=3.899,p=.001<.01].More importantly,according to the condition in these different three regions,conditions are depicted in the following sentences: the amplitude of N400 elicited by the probe words under the condition of nonsensical sentence is the largest in frontal region(-4.805±4.159),less large under the condition of metaphorical sentences(-3.672±2.919),and the smallest under the condition of literal sentences(-3.515±3.012).And conditions in central regions can be depicted as follows: the amplitude of N400 elicited by probe words under the condition of nonsensical sentence is the largest in the central region(-2.587±3.204),less large under the condition of metaphorical sentences(-1.6043.117),and the smallest under the condition of literal sentences(-1.301±2.603).And conditions in parietal regions can be described as follows: the amplitude of N400 elicited by probe words under the condition of nonsensical sentence is the largest in the parietal region(-2.587±3.204),less large under the condition of metaphorical sentences(-1.564±2.604),and the smallest under the condition of literal sentences(-1.312±2.626).Moreover,in the late stage of semantic processing,LPC plays a very important role.In the time window of 540-1000 ms,the amplitude of LPC elicited by probe words is the largest in literal sentence,less large in metaphorical sentences and the smallest in nonsensical sentences,which again verifies the result that the relation of N400 and LPC has a negative correlation,and this is consistent with the previous study.(3)The effect of N400 evoked by the probe words shows significant differences in the left and right hemispheres.The t-test results demonstrate that the N400 effect is significant both in the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere,but the effect is more evident in the right hemisphere[t(19)=-3.510,p=.015<.05].Both left and right hemispheres are involved in the construal of English metaphorical sentences,and to be more specific,the right hemisphere plays a more important role.In short,based on the results,significant difference exists in the left frontal region,right frontal region,left central region and right central region within the cooperation both in the left hemisphere and right hemisphere.And significant can be seen in the left frontal,right frontal region and the whole central region,so does between the metaphorical sentence and nonsensical sentence.Due to the use of metaphor in this paper is restricted to familiar metaphor,the degree of salience in terms of metaphorical sentence and literals is relatively high,which results in different cognitive processing.This can verify that the possible feature can be abstract under the metaphorical sentence and support the Annotation-Denotation Relevance-Inheritance Model proposed by Liao Qiaoyun(2015)in English metaphor.