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Metaphor in the United States

Metaphor in the United States. Anna Kaal & Lettie Dorst. Vu research project: Metaphor in Discourse. 5-year project headed by Gerard Steen Metaphor analysis in four registers: Academic, conversation, news, fiction Research on four properties: Linguistic, conceptual, discursive, cognitive.

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Metaphor in the United States

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  1. Metaphor in the United States Anna Kaal & Lettie Dorst

  2. Vu research project: Metaphor in Discourse • 5-year project headed by Gerard Steen • Metaphor analysis in four registers: • Academic, conversation, news, fiction • Research on four properties: • Linguistic, conceptual, discursive, cognitive

  3. VICI-group

  4. Chicago (LA-group)

  5. Metaphor in conversation • 50,000 words from BNC Baby: transcripts • Metaphorically used words: prepositions, phrasal verbs, delexicalized verbs, demonstratives • Real-time nature of spoken language? • Language system, non-deliberate • Multimodality

  6. Spoken metaphor Stewart & Heredia (2002) His friend replied: ‘Aw, the creampuff*** didn’t even show*** up’ Metaphoric probe: boxer Literalprobe: pastry Q: Is there something about spoken metaphor that makes it easier to comprehend than written metaphor? Q: Does speech influence metaphor comprehension /interpretation?

  7. Spoken metaphor Nygaard & Lunders (2002) ‘die/dye’ -> neutral, happy or sad voice Bowdle & Gentner (2005) ‘Career of Metaphor’ Novel versus conventional metaphor -> If we have A is like B similes, does emotional/biased tone of voice affect the speed with which people understand these figurative expressions and does it affect their interpretations?

  8. Stimuli • Rating study: • Familiarity (familiar, novel and in between) • Semantic valence (negative, ambiguous, positive) • Tone of voice: record items with male lay actor in neutral, positive and negative voice • Nonsense items in positive, negative, and neutral voice

  9. Experiment • Experimental items: ‘Children are like sponges’ / ‘Those critics are like raptors’ / ‘The civilservant is like an ant’ • Control items: ‘A cat is like spinach’ • Tasks: • Does this utterance make sense? -> Reaction Times • Paraphrase what the sentence means -> interpretation responses

  10. Experiment cont’d Hypotheses: • Interpretation with a congruent / biased intonation is faster, because this leads to extra context enabling a listener to think in a specific direction, instead of finding the best relationship him/herself • Familiar expressions will be understood faster (intonation does not necessarily help, because not necessary) than in between/novel expressions (they will take longer than familiar expressions, but are quicker to interpret with congruent/biased than with neutral intonation)

  11. Results Average reaction times in milliseconds; based on 45 participants; only correct YES answers included

  12. Results (2) • Familiar expressions are significantly more quickly understood than unfamiliar expressions • Negative tone of voice expressions are significantly faster (both in congruous and incongruous conditions). Why? • Ambiguous items are more quickly understood with positive tone of voice than with either neutral or negative tone of voice. Why?

  13. Further considerations • Rate tone of voice of lay actor • Analyse interpretations (+ rate them for valence) • Speech versus writing in a comparable fashion • Nature of the “A is like B” comparisons: abstract versus concrete • Interaction between tone of voice and context • Reference metaphor instead of simile • Deliberateness and contrastive stress

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