Does Figurative Language Present a Unique Comprehension Problem?

Abstract

In order to investigate whether or not the interpretation of figurative passages presented a comprehension problem unique to that of any difficult text, 50 undergraduate education majors were asked to read and interpret a nonliteral comparison passage and two researcher-constructed figurative passages. Subjects took pretests to measure their general vocabulary knowledge and inferencing ability. Performance on these measures was compared with abilities considered unique to the comprehension of figurative expressions. A set of quantitative analyses indicated that the figurative-unique abilities could not definitively account for the interpretation of both figurative passages. However, an additional qualitative analysis of interviews conducted with 10 of the subjects indicated that figurative unique abilities identified in previous research with isolated figurative expressions were operating during the interpretation of the figurative passages used in this study. The study illustrates the benefit of combining quantitative and qualitative methods to answer basic research questions about text comprehension.The comprehension of figurative language is a complex metalinguistic and cognitive ability (Friedman 1972;Ortony, 1980). Although figurative expression has interested philosophers, linguists, educators, literary theorists, psychologists, and cognitive scientists for some time, and has been used by some authors to create the essence of their writing style, relatively little is known about how figurative expressions promote humor or convey imagery (Bartel, 1983;Murray, 1972) or why readers know to approach such expressions as contextual anomalies rather than interpreting them at face value (Ortony, 1984). In short, although the expressions occur frequently in oral and written language, we are not sure how they are under- 64Journal of Reading Behavior stood. Ortony has contended that for adults, comprehension of figurative language is typically an automatic process which occasionally fails. These failures may be due to an inability to see distinctions between what is said and what is intended or to factors which are common to comprehending any difficult text. In this study, the careful examination of how adult language users approach difficult figurative passages was a vehicle for isolating some factors unique to figurative expression. Specifically, the purpose of this study was to compare factors that can account for comprehension of any difficult text with some factors that have been identified as important to the comprehension of figurative language, in an attempt to identify whether figurative language presents a unique comprehension problem.There are a number of theoretical positions on how metaphors are understood, including Aristotle's comparison theory (see McKeon, 1947);Black's (1962) Richards's (1936) philosophical work provides a mechanism for explaining the theoretical positions, his perspective will be clarified before the individual theories are explained. The expression below can be used to clar...

On the outside Looking in: A Study of Remedial Readers' Meaning-Making While Reading Literature

“…The qualitative analysis of the data in this study revealed a difficulty with figurative language and with implicit meanings requiring inferencing. Taking the case of figurative language alone, several reading researchers have acknowledged its role in comprehension difficulties (O'Brien & Martin, 1988). It an examination of Ortony's (1979) salience imbalance model of figurative language comprehension, Readence, Baldwin, Martin, and O'Brien (1984) hypothesized a series of steps a reader must make in order to correctly process figurative language.…”