Interpreting metaphors and idioms: Some effects of context on comprehension

Ortony, Andrew; Schallert, Diane L.; Reynolds, Ralph E.; Antos, Stephen J.

doi:10.1016/s0022-5371(78)90283-9

Cited by 417 publications

(262 citation statements)

References 11 publications

(9 reference statements)

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“…Ortony, Schallert, Reynolds, and Antos (1978) report that comprehension of idiomatic phrases in their idiom sense took no longer (and in fact was often faster) than in their literal sense, a result they took to suggest that idioms and metaphors require no special processing for comprehension. Certainly these results fit well with a Lexical Representation Hypothesis.…”

Section: Discussion Of Experiments 2 and General Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The access and processing of idiomatic expressions

Swinney

Cutler

1979

Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior

537

376

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Two experiments examined the nature of access, storage, and comprehension of idiomatic phrases. In both studies a Phrase Classification Task was utilized. In this, reaction times to determine whether or not word strings constituted acceptable English phrases were measured. Classification times were significantly faster to idiom than to matched control phrases. This effect held under conditions involving different categories of idioms, different transitional probabilities among words in the phrases, and different levels of awareness of the presence of idioms in the materials. The data support a Lexical Representation Hypothesis for the processing of idioms.Investigation of the processes underlying sentence comprehension has tended, understandably enough, to consider the more simple cases which confront the listener. For example, examinations of lexical processing during sentence comprehension have typically employed words with straightforward and easily derived interpretations. While an important exception to this rule is the study of lexical ambiguities, even this work deals with words which possess relatively well-defined literal meanings. There is, however, a large class of items--including idioms, metaphors, and proverbs--which are extraordinarily common in the language but which have been largely ignored in comprehension research; the few attempts to discover how the compre- hension device computes nonliteral meanings for these items have found them to be remarkably intractable. The high frequency of occurrence ofnonliteral materials alone necessitates that the processes responsible for their comprehension be incorporated in any complete comprehension model. Idioms, in particular, present an important challenge to those interested in building a performance model for sentence comprehension, and the purpose of this paper is to examine some of the basic aspects of how we come to understand idiomatic expressions. In order to see the nature of the problems that idioms raise for the comprehension device it is first necessary to consider exactly what constitutes an idiom. In its simplest form an idiom is a string of two or more words for which meaning is not derived from the meanings of the individual words comprising that string. Thus, the idiomatic meaning of "kick the bucket" has little to do with the meanings of either "kick" or "bucket"; similarly, the meaning of "by and large" has little to do with the meanings of either "large" or "by."Thus, by and large, idioms defy traditional concepts of syntactic and semantic analysis,

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Section: Discussion Of Experiments 2 and General Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The access and processing of idiomatic expressions

Swinney

Cutler

1979

Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior

537

376

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show abstract

“…Psycholinguists have also challenged the prediction that metaphoric meanings take longer to compute than literal ones by contrasting reading times for both types of statements. Whereas reading times for metaphors are generally longer in minimal contexts, when the same stimuli are embedded in longer passages that provide supporting context, literal and metaphorical utterances are read and understood at the same rate (Inhoff, Lima, & Carrol, 1984;Ortony, Schallert, Reynolds, & Antos, 1978).…”

Section: Experimental Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

Metaphor and the Space Structuring Model

Coulson¹,

Matlock²

2001

Metaphor and Symbol

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“…In addition to strings that do not make sense (e.g., wish out table), idiomatic strings (e.g., break the ice) and matched literal expressions (e.g., break the glass) are presented. One very robust finding is that idiomatic expressions are typically responded to as fast or faster than matched literal expressions are (Gibbs, 1980;McGlone, Glucksberg, & Cacciari, 1994;Ortony, Schallert, Reynolds, & Antos, 1978;Swinney & Cutler, 1979). All current models of idiom recognition must, and indeed do, explain this phenomenon (referred to as the idiom superiority effect); however, they do so in very different ways.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In contrast, the meaning of nondecomposable idioms is retrieved directly from the lexicon. Thus, Ortony et al, 1978;Swinney & Cutler, 1979). However, inspection of the materials, when possible, suggests that the idiomatic strings are typically very familiar (Swinney & Cutler, 1979).…”

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confidence: 99%

Why are idioms recognized fast?

2009

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It is an established fact that idiomatic expressions are fast to process. However, the explanation of the phenomenon is controversial. Using a semantic judgment paradigm, where people decide whether a string is meaningful or not, the present experiment tested the predictions deriving from the three main theories of idiom recognition-the lexical representation hypothesis, the idiom decomposition hypothesis, and the configuration hypothesis. Participants were faster at judging decomposable idioms, nondecomposable idioms, and clichés than at judging their matched controls. The effect was comparable for all conventional expressions. The results were interpreted as suggesting that, as posited by the configuration hypothesis, the fact that they are known expressions, rather than idiomaticity, explains their fast recognition.

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Interpreting metaphors and idioms: Some effects of context on comprehension

Cited by 417 publications

References 11 publications

The access and processing of idiomatic expressions

The access and processing of idiomatic expressions

Metaphor and the Space Structuring Model

Why are idioms recognized fast?

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