The topic comprehension process in simile sentences

The Topic Comprehension Process in Simile Sentences Tomohiro Taira (cogpsy.t.taira@gmail.com) Takashi Kusumi (kusumi@educ.kyoto-u.ac.jp) Graduate school of Education, Kyoto University Yoshida-Honmachi, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan topic in metaphoric-sentence comprehension has seldom been examined experimentally. We used a simple meaningfulness decision task with three conditions relating to word order to investigate the topic of simile as relevant to the metaphoric comprehension. Abstract Our study investigates the process of topic comprehension in comparative sentences and the relationship between this process and the word order of topic and vehicle. Our experiment used a meaningfulness decision task with three conditions: no-vehicle sentence (e.g. a word hurts someone), vehicle-after-topic sentence (e.g. a word, like a weapon, hurts someone), and vehicle-before-topic sentence (e.g. like a weapon, a word hurts someone.) The results of the meaningfulness decision task show that the vehicle-after-topic sentence and the vehicle-before-topic sentence were judged as meaningful more quickly than the no-vehicle sentence. Especially in comparative sentences with low conventional vehicle, the vehicle-before-topic sentences were judged more quickly than the vehicle-after-topic sentences. Metaphor and Simile Keywords: figurative language, simile, metaphor, comparative sentence, meaningfulness decision task Introduction Figurative language is an interesting problem in the fields of linguistics, psychology, and the other cognitive sciences. Many researchers have particularly noticed metaphoric nominal sentences in this regard (e.g., Bowdle & Gentner, 2005; Chiappe, Kennedy, & Smykowski, 2003; Gernsbacher, Keysar, Robertson & Werner, 2001; Jones & Estes, 2006; Utsumi, 2007). In those recent studies, the category of “metaphoric nominal sentence” includes two types of sentences: metaphors and similes. The metaphor is a declarative sentence that is composed of a topic and a vehicle only, such as a word is a weapon, while the simile is a comparative sentence that is composed of a topic, a vehicle, and a comparative word, e.g., a word is like a weapon. Some recent studies have used the two types of sentences as a method to investigate the process of similarity cognition, or evaluation of the similarity between topic and vehicle (e.g. Bowdle & Gentner, 2005; Jones & Estes, 2006; Utsumi, 2007). However, other studies have examined the process of comprehending metaphoric sentences in themselves, without looking at similes (e.g. Blasko & Connine, 1993; Gernsbacher et al., 2001; Jones & Estes, 2005). In studies of metaphor, the main emphasis often falls on the process of vehicle categorization (Gernsbacher et al., 2001; Glucksberg, 2003; Glucksberg, McGlone, & Manfredi, 1997). Experimental research on the topic comprehension-process, on the other hand, seems to be lacking. In this paper, we examined the simile and its effect on topic comprehension. In comparison with metaphor, simile has rarely been examined in the research field of metaphoric-sentence comprehension. Moreover, the role of Metaphor and simile are similar and seem, in fact, to be two forms of the same expression, whereas they have different pragmatic aspects (Roberts & Kreuz, 1994). One different point is that the metaphor is an expression that considers the topic as sharing an ad hoc category with as the vehicle, while the simile is an expression that emphasizes similarity between the topic and the vehicle without assigning them to the same category. So metaphor expresses categorical and identical relationships, while the simile expresses comparative but differentiated relationships between topic and vehicle. Because of this difference, two sentences were used as a method to investigate strength of similarity in a topic-vehicle pair, as mentioned above. This difference explains whether the topic-vehicle pair is preferentially expressed as a metaphor or a simile. For example, Bowdle & Gentner (2005) argued that cognitive similarity between the topic and vehicle is enhanced by the conventionality of the vehicle, explaining the preference for metaphor or simile: a topic-vehicle pair with a conventional vehicle is preferred for the metaphor form, while an unconventional vehicle is preferred for the simile form. Also, Jones & Estes (2006) experimentally showed the effect of aptness on the preference for the metaphor form. They revealed that a highly apt pair of topic-vehicle pair is preferred for the metaphor form, while a less apt topic- vehicle pair is preferred for the simile form. They argued that the similarity between topic and vehicle is determined by how aptly the vehicle expresses the important features of the topic. These studies on metaphor-simile preference, however, discuss only the process of similarity cognition between topic and vehicle, not the comprehension process of metaphoric sentences. They reveal the relationships between similarity cognition and preference for metaphor or simile, but did not reveal what meaning the topic or vehicle are understood as having in a declarative or a comparative sentence. Comprehension of Topic and Vehicle Some previous studies have examined the problem we mentioned above. For example, Gernsbacher et al. (2001) and Glucksberg, Newsome, & Goldvarg (2001)