Interpreting Figurative Meaning PDF
Preview Interpreting Figurative Meaning
interpreting figurative meaning InterpretingFigurativeMeaningcriticallyevaluatestherecentempiricalwork frompsycholinguisticsandneuroscienceexaminingthesuccessesanddiffi- cultiesassociatedwithinterpretingfigurativelanguage.Thereisnowahuge, oftencontradictory,literatureonhowpeopleunderstandfiguresofspeech. Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr., and Herbert L. Colston argue that there may not be a single theory or model that adequately explains both the processes andproductsoffigurativemeaningexperience.Experimentalresearchmay ultimately be unable to simply adjudicate between current models in psy- chology,linguistics,andphilosophyofhowfigurativemeaningisinterpreted. Alternatively,theauthorsadvanceabroadtheoreticalframework,motivated byideasfrom“dynamicalsystemstheory,”thatdescribesthemultipleinter- acting influences that shape people’s experiences of figurative meaning in discourse.Thisbookdetailspastresearchandtheory,offersacriticalassess- mentofthiswork,andsetsthestageforanewvisionoffigurativeexperience inhumanlife. Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr., is Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He is the author of several books including The Poetics of Mind: Figurative Thought, Language, and Understanding; Inten- tionsintheExperienceofMeaning,andEmbodimentandCognitiveScience. HeisalsoeditorofthevolumeTheCambridgeHandbookofMetaphorand ThoughtandeditorofthejournalMetaphorandSymbol. HerbertL.ColstonisProfessorofPsychologyattheUniversityofWiscon- sin, Parkside. He has published widely and edited several books including FigurativeLanguageComprehension:SocialandCulturalInfluencesandIrony inLanguageandThought:ACognitiveScienceReader. Downloaded from Cambridge Books Online by IP 14.139.43.12 on Sat Oct 06 07:56:38 BST 2012. http://ebooks.cambridge.org/ebook.jsf?bid=CBO9781139168779 Cambridge Books Online © Cambridge University Press, 2012 Downloaded from Cambridge Books Online by IP 14.139.43.12 on Sat Oct 06 07:56:38 BST 2012. http://ebooks.cambridge.org/ebook.jsf?bid=CBO9781139168779 Cambridge Books Online © Cambridge University Press, 2012 Interpreting Figurative Meaning Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr. UniversityofCalifornia,SantaCruz Herbert L. Colston UniversityofWisconsin,Parkside Downloaded from Cambridge Books Online by IP 14.139.43.12 on Sat Oct 06 07:56:38 BST 2012. http://ebooks.cambridge.org/ebook.jsf?bid=CBO9781139168779 Cambridge Books Online © Cambridge University Press, 2012 cambridgeuniversitypress Cambridge,NewYork,Melbourne,Madrid,CapeTown, Singapore,Sa˜oPaulo,Delhi,MexicoCity CambridgeUniversityPress 32AvenueoftheAmericas,NewYork,ny10013-2473,usa www.cambridge.org Informationonthistitle:www.cambridge.org/9781107607279 (cid:2)C RaymondW.Gibbs,Jr.,andHerbertW.Colston2012 Thispublicationisincopyright.Subjecttostatutoryexception andtotheprovisionsofrelevantcollectivelicensingagreements, noreproductionofanypartmaytakeplacewithoutthewritten permissionofCambridgeUniversityPress. Firstpublished2012 PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica AcatalogrecordforthispublicationisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary. LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData Gibbs,RaymondW. Interpretingfigurativemeaning/RaymondW.Gibbs,Jr.,HerbertL.Colston. p. cm. Includesbibliographicalreferences. isbn978-1-107-02435-9(hardback)–isbn978-1-107-60727-9 1.Figuresofspeech. 2.Sociolinguistics. 3.Psycholinguistics. I.Colston,HerbertL. II.Title. p40.5.f54g53 2012 808.032–dc23 2011053275 isbn978-1-107-02435-9Hardback isbn978-1-107-60727-9Paperback CambridgeUniversityPresshasnoresponsibilityforthepersistenceoraccuracyofurlsfor externalorthird-partyInternetWebsitesreferredtointhispublicationanddoesnot guaranteethatanycontentonsuchWebsitesis,orwillremain,accurateorappropriate. Downloaded from Cambridge Books Online by IP 14.139.43.12 on Sat Oct 06 07:56:38 BST 2012. http://ebooks.cambridge.org/ebook.jsf?bid=CBO9781139168779 Cambridge Books Online © Cambridge University Press, 2012 contents 1 Introduction page1 2 IdentifyingFigurativeLanguage 15 3 ModelsofFigurativeLanguageComprehension 58 4 InterpretingSpecificFiguresofSpeech 128 5 IndeterminacyinFigurativeLanguageExperience 192 6 FactorsShapingFigurativeMeaningInterpretation 260 7 BroadeningtheScopeofFigurativeLanguageStudies 327 References 345 Index 381 v Downloaded from Cambridge Books Online by IP 14.139.43.12 on Sat Oct 06 07:56:45 BST 2012. http://ebooks.cambridge.org/ebook.jsf?bid=CBO9781139168779 Cambridge Books Online © Cambridge University Press, 2012 Downloaded from Cambridge Books Online by IP 14.139.43.12 on Sat Oct 06 07:56:45 BST 2012. http://ebooks.cambridge.org/ebook.jsf?bid=CBO9781139168779 Cambridge Books Online © Cambridge University Press, 2012 Cambridge Books Online http://ebooks.cambridge.org/ Interpreting Figurative Meaning Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr, Herbert L. Colston Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139168779 Online ISBN: 9781139168779 Hardback ISBN: 9781107024359 Paperback ISBN: 9781107607279 Chapter 1 - Introduction pp. 1-14 Chapter DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139168779.001 Cambridge University Press 1 Introduction Figurative language generally refers to speech where speakers mean something other than what they literally say. Consider a situation in which Harriet says to a friend, “My marriage is an icebox.” Most people recognize that Harriet intends to communicate something negativeabouthermarriage,suchasitisnotemotionallyaffection- ateorsexuallypassionate.Howlistenersarriveatthesemetaphorical meaningsisatopicofconsiderabledebatewithinboththehumanities andcognitivescience.Onewidelyheldbeliefisthatmetaphoricallan- guagemustbemoredifficulttounderstandthanplain,literalspeech, preciselybecausemetaphors,likeallkindsoffigurativelanguage,are ornamentalanddeviatefromliteralthought.Astandardwaytoassess thisideaistomeasuretheamountoftimeittakeslisteners,orread- ers,tocomprehendfigurative(inthiscasemetaphorical)utterances comparedtoroughlyequivalentliteralspeech. The results of dozens of studies present a complex picture on thisissue.Although,whenseeninisolation,metaphoricalutterances generallytakelongertounderstandthanliteralones,figurativespeech canoftenbeunderstoodasquicklyasliteralspeechwhenencountered in realistic discourse contexts (Gibbs, 1994, 2011 for reviews). This conclusionisespeciallytrueformorefamiliar,conventionalfigurative language, such as idioms (e.g., “kick the bucket”), stock metaphors (e.g.,“Johnisatiger”),conventionalironies(e.g.,“Afinefriendyou are”),andcertainindirectspeechacts(e.g.,“Canyoupassthesalt?”). Somescholarsargue,nonetheless,thatnovelfigurativelanguage,such 1 Downloaded from Cambridge Books Online by IP 14.139.43.12 on Sat Oct 06 07:56:54 BST 2012. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139168779.001 Cambridge Books Online © Cambridge University Press, 2012 2 InterpretingFigurativeMeaning ascreativemetaphors,willalwaysrequireadditionalcognitiveeffortto understandcomparedtothatneededtoprocessnonfigurativespeech. The extra time needed to comprehend figurative language is often assumedtoreflectinitialprocessingofaword’s(oranentirephrase’s) literalorsemanticmeaning,withcontexthavingaguidingrolelater intheinterpretationprocess. Ouraiminthisbookistocriticallyevaluatetherecentempirical work that examines people’s successes and difficulties when inter- pretingfigurativemeanings.Althoughmainstreampsycholinguistics didnotinitiallypaymuchattentiontotheproblemofhowfigurative speech was understood, because such language was seen as abnor- mal, there is now a huge literature that has examined many aspects ofhowpeoplelearn,produce,andcomprehendfigurativelanguage. Not surprisingly, many theories have been proposed to account for how people understand different types of figurative language. We willdescribethesetheoriesandtheempiricalstudiestestingthemin the chapters that follow. Our primary focus is on the debates over the cognitive effort that is required to interpret speakers’ and writ- ers’ meanings when they use figurative language, and the cognitive effectsormeaningsthatarisefromlisteners’andreaders’interpretive processes. The time is ripe for this reappraisal of the research on figurative meaning because of some misguided assumptions about both the theoriesandempiricalmethodsadvocatedinthestudyoffigurative language processing. For instance, scholars continue to assume that there is a principled distinction between literal and nonliteral lan- guage, and that a single theory can account for how all aspects of figurativelanguageareunderstood.Werejectbothofthesebeliefs. Atthesametime,researchers,especiallyincognitivescience,main- tain simplistic ideals about the nature of figurative meanings, such as the notion that speakers wish to convey single messages by their use of figurative, as opposed to so-called literal, speech. Scholars also assume that “understanding” figurative language rests on some Downloaded from Cambridge Books Online by IP 14.139.43.12 on Sat Oct 06 07:56:54 BST 2012. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139168779.001 Cambridge Books Online © Cambridge University Press, 2012 Introduction 3 definitive “click of comprehension” that can be readily measured in scientific experiments. These idealistic views of figurative meaning have, in our view, brought forth a whole host of na¨ıve theories that onlyaddressasmallrangeofdiscoursesituationsinwhichfigurative utterancesareproducedandinterpreted. Weapproachthetopicofinterpretingfigurativemeaningfromthe perspectiveoftwocognitivepsychologistswhospecializeinresearch exploring how, and why, people produce and understand language. Over the past 25 years or so, psycholinguistics has been primarily interested in describing the moment-by-moment mental processes that occur when people produce and comprehend language, rang- ingfromtheidentificationsofspeechsoundsandwrittenwords,up to larger meaningful units of conversation and texts. As psycholo- gists have long realized, it is impossible to introspect about these rapid, mostly unconscious mental processes because humans have evolved to be remarkably efficient in using language. Although lin- guists, psychologists, and philosophers explore people’s intuitions aboutaspectsoflanguage,suchasjudgmentsofgrammaticality,cog- nitive scientists are unanimous in their belief that intuition alone is insufficient to systematically study the operations of the language processor.Forthisreason,psycholinguists(includingneurolinguists) havedevelopedawiderangeofexperimentalmethodsthatallowthem todrawinferencesabouttheautomatic,unconsciousprocessesoccur- ringwhenpeopleordinarilyuselanguage.Thesemethodsare“indi- rect”inthesensethattheyrequireparticipantstoengageindifferent tasks,thedatafromwhichcanthenbeanalyzedtodrawconclusions about possible hypotheses on how figurative language is ordinarily understood. But psycholinguists’ primary interest with early aspects of pro- cessing leads them to posit general models of figurative language interpretation that might be quite misleading. People may not pro- cess all figurative meaning in the same way, precisely because the kindsandformsofdifferenttropesaresufficientlyvariedastoresist Downloaded from Cambridge Books Online by IP 14.139.43.12 on Sat Oct 06 07:56:54 BST 2012. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139168779.001 Cambridge Books Online © Cambridge University Press, 2012
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