Aesthetic Attraction And Interpersonal Impression Of Metaphor In Men-to-Women Complimentary Context

As a kind of figurative language,metaphor is widely used in our daily life.Its aesthetic attractiveness has drawn the attention of scholars across disciplines,such as psychology,linguistics and sociology.The aesthetic attraction is acknowledged as the emotional reaction of appreciators.However,the reasons for why metaphorical expressions can stimulate such a hedonic feeling still remain divergent.Moreover,few studies on metaphor use in a social context result in a limited understanding for metaphor recipients' aesthetic perception.Therefore,this study aims at the following two questions: 1)What factors can predict metaphor's aesthetic attractiveness? 2)In a men-to-women complimentary context,will different degrees of metaphorical attractiveness influence women's impression on male language users?Ninety female undergraduates were recruited from different majors.Three hundred forty-seven sentences that were created by male college students in a previous independent experiment were collected.The women participants were required to rate metaphorical compliments based on 7-point Likert scale in terms of 1)language aspects: attractiveness,appropriateness,figurativeness,familiarity,imageability;2)feeling aspects: romance,arousal,valence;3)impression on male language users: intelligence,humor,sincerity;and finally 4)relationship women raters would like to establish with the men.Using Pearson correlation and regression models(both linear and hierarchical)with SPSS 22.0,metaphor's aesthetic attractiveness is found to be positively correlated with figurativeness,imageability,romance and arousal whereas negatively related to familiarity.However,arousal and romance are likely to be stronger predictors for metaphor's aesthetic attractiveness compared with figurativeness,familiarity and imageability.Besides,no significant correlation is found between metaphor's attractiveness and impression on male metaphor creators(i.e.intelligence,humor and sincerity)in a general cross-sex communication.Overall,the study provides evidence that the metaphors of high figurativeness,novelty and imageability in a linguistic dimension and of high arousal and romance in an emotional dimension are more attractive aesthetically.The study further deepens our understanding of metaphor's aesthetic attractiveness.Moreover,on the basis of evolutionary psychology and previous findings,they reveal that romance could have an impact on metaphor's aesthetic attractiveness in a cross-sex communication context.That is to say,women are more likely to establish a long commitment relationship with men due to sexual selection potentials.Thus,highly romantic metaphorical expressions could grab their attentions more easily,which also indicates the significance of sexual selection in the aesthetic perception and creation.