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R W Gibbs

Publications and source records attributed to R W Gibbs.

12 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1992

Categorization and metaphor understanding.

Glucksberg and Keysar (1990) have proposed a class-inclusion model of metaphor comprehension. This theory suggests that metaphors are not understood as implicit similes but are seen as class-inclusion statements in which the topic of a metaphor is assigned to a diagnostic, ad hoc category, whereas the metaphor's vehicle is a prototypical member of that category. The author claims that verbal metaphors are not simply instantiations of temporary, ad hoc categories but reflect preexisting conceptual mappings in long-term memory that are metaphorically structured. Various evidence from cognitive linguistics, philosophy, and psychology are described in support of this claim. Evidence is also presented that supports, contrary to Glucksberg and Keysar's position, the role of tacit conceptual metaphors in the comprehension of verbal metaphors in discourse.

Concept Formation↗
PubMed1991

Authorial intentions and metaphor comprehension.

Three experiments investigated the role of authorial intentions in metaphor comprehension. In these studies, subjects read metaphoric (e.g., "A family album is like a museum"), literal (e.g., "An art gallery is like a museum"), and anomalous (e.g., "A tortoise shell is like an art gallery") comparisons and rated their degree of meaningfulness (Experiment 1), made speeded decisions as to whether each phrase was meaningful or not (Experiment 2), or wrote out interpretations of each comparison statement (Experiment 3). The subjects were told that the comparisons were written either by famous 20th century poets or by a computer program that randomly generated the statements from a list of words. Our general hypothesis was that knowing that intentional agents (the poets) authored the different comparisons should facilitate subjects' comprehension of the metaphors. Experiment 1 showed that subjects rated both metaphoric and literal comparisons as being more meaningful in the poet condition than when these statements were supposedly written by computer. Experiment 2 demonstrated that subjects were faster in making their meaningfulness judgments for metaphors in the poet condition than in the computer context, but that subjects were also slower in rejecting anomalous comparisons when these were supposedly written by the poets. Experiment 3 indicated that subjects produced more meanings or interpretations for comparisons presumably written by poets than by computer. These results highlight the importance of implied, authorial intentions in understanding metaphorical statements. We discuss the implications of this work for psycholinguistic theories of figurative language comprehension, as well as for theories of literary interpretation.

Adult↗
PubMed1991

Semantic analyzability in children's understanding of idioms.

This study investigated the role of semantic analyzability in children's understanding of idioms. Kindergartners and first, third, and fourth graders listened to idiomatic expressions either alone or at the end of short story contexts. Their task was to explain verbally the intended meanings of these phrases and then to choose their correct idiomatic interpretations. The idioms presented to the children differed in their degree of analyzability. Some idioms were highly analyzable or decomposable, with the meanings of their parts contributing independently to their overall figurative meanings. Other idioms were nondecomposable because it was difficult to see any relation between a phrase's individual components and the idiom's figurative meaning. The results showed that younger children (kindergartners and first graders) understood decomposable idioms better than they did nondecomposable phrases. Older children (third and fourth graders) understood both kinds of idioms equally well in supporting contexts, but were better at interpreting decomposable idioms than they were at understanding nondecomposable idioms without contextual information. These findings demonstrate that young children better understand idiomatic phrases whose individual parts independently contribute to their overall figurative meanings.

Age Factors↗
PubMed1990

Why boys will be boys and girls will be girls: understanding colloquial tautologies.

What do tautological phrases such as Boys will be boys, A promise is a promise, or War is war mean and how are they understood? These phrases literally appear to be uninformative, yet speakers frequently use such expressions in conversation and listeners have little difficulty comprehending them. Understanding nominal tautologies requires that listeners/readers infer the speaker's attitude toward the noun phrase (e.g., boys) mentioned in the sentence. The purpose of the present studies was to investigate the role of context, syntactic form, and lexical content in the interpretation of nominal tuatologies. Two studies are reported in which subjects rated the acceptability of different tautological constructions either alone (Experiment 1) or with supporting contextual information (Experiment 2). The results of these studies provide evidence that colloquial tautologies can be interpreted differently in different contexts, but that there are important regularities in the syntactic form and lexical content of these phrases which influence how they are understood. Our findings highlight the importance of speakers/listeners' stereotypical understanding of people, activities, and concrete objects in the use and understanding of different tautological expressions. The implications of this research for psycholinguistic theories of conversational inference and indirect language use are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed1990

Idioms and mental imagery: the metaphorical motivation for idiomatic meaning.

We conducted three experiments to investigate the mental images associated with idiomatic phrases in English. Our hypothesis was that people should have strong conventional images for many idioms and that the regularity in people's knowledge of their images for idioms is due to the conceptual metaphors motivating the figurative meanings of idioms. In the first study, subjects were asked to form and describe their mental images for different idiomatic expressions. Subjects were then asked a series of detailed questions about their images regarding the causes and effects of different events within their images. We found high consistency in subjects' images of idioms with similar figurative meanings despite differences in their surface forms (e.g., spill the beans and let the cat out of the bag). Subjects' responses to detailed questions about their images also showed a high degree of similarity in their answers. Further examination of subjects' imagery protocols supports the idea that the conventional images and knowledge associated with idioms are constrained by the conceptual metaphors (e.g., the MIND IS A CONTAINER and IDEAS ARE ENTITIES) which motivate the figurative meanings of idioms. The results of two control studies showed that the conventional images associated with idioms are not solely based on their figurative meanings (Experiment 2) and that the images associated with literal phrases (e.g., spill the peas) were quite varied and unlikely to be constrained by conceptual metaphor (Experiment 3). These findings support the view that idioms are not "dead" metaphors with their meanings being arbitrarily determined. Rather, the meanings of many idioms are motivated by speakers' tacit knowledge of the conceptual metaphors underlying the meanings of these figurative phrases.

Adult↗
PubMed1990

Conceptual knowledge in the interpretation of idioms.

The authors examined how people determine the contextual appropriateness of idioms. In Experiment 1, idioms referring to the same temporal stage of a conceptual prototype were judged to be more similar in meaning than idioms referring to different temporal stages. In Experiment 2, idioms in a prototypical temporal sequence were more meaningful than idioms in sentences that violated the temporal sequence. In Experiment 3, idioms referring to the same stage of a conceptual prototype were differentiable on the basis of conceptual information. The conceptual coherence between idioms and contexts facilitated the processing speed of idioms in Experiment 4. Experiment 5 showed that speakers can recover the underlying conceptual metaphors that link an idiom to its figurative meaning. Experiment 6 showed that the metaphoric information reflected in the lexical makeup of idioms also determined the metaphoric appropriateness of idioms in certain contexts.

Adult↗
PubMed1990

Comprehending figurative referential descriptions.

A common way of referring to people is with figurative language. People can be referred to metaphorically, as in calling a terrible boxer "a creampuff," or metonymically, as in calling a naval admiral "the brass." The present studies investigated the anaphoric inferences that occur during comprehension of figurative referential descriptions. Subjects read short narratives, each ending in either a literal or figurative description of another person. Immediately after the last line of each text, the anaphoric antecedent for the description of another person. Immediately after the last line of each text, the anaphoric antecedent for the description was presented in a probe recognition task. The results of three experiments indicated that metaphoric and metonymic referential descriptions reinstate their antecedents in the course of comprehension. Subjects were faster at reinstating the antecedents for literal referential descriptions than at reinstating metaphoric and metonymic descriptions. Moreover, people understand metaphoric referential descriptions more easily than they do metonymic ones. The implications of these findings for theories of anaphora resolution and figurative language comprehension are discussed.

Cognition↗
PubMed1989

Psycholinguistic studies on the syntactic behavior of idioms.

Six experiments examined why some idioms can be syntactically changed and still retain their figurative meanings (e.g., John laid down the law can be passivized as The law was laid down by John), while other idioms cannot be syntactically altered without losing their figurative meanings (e.g., John kicked the bucket cannot be passivized into The bucket was kicked by John). Our thesis was that the syntactic behavior of idioms is determined, to a large extent, but speakers' assumptions about the way in which parts of idioms contribute to their figurative interpretations as a whole. The results of our studies indicated that idioms whose individual semantic components contribute to their overall figurative meanings (e.g., go out on a limb) were judged as more syntactically flexible or productive than nondecomposable phrases (e.g., kick the bucket). These findings suggested that idioms do not form a unique class of linguistic items (e.g., as "dead" metaphors), but can share many of the same compositional properties normally associated with more "literal" language. The implications of these data for theories of syntactic productivity of idioms and for models of idiom comprehension are discussed.

Humans↗
PubMed1989

Speakers' assumptions about the lexical flexibility of idioms.

In three experiments, we examined why some idioms can be lexically altered and still retain their figurative meanings (e.g., John buttoned his lips about Mary can be changed into John fastened his lips about Mary and still mean "John didn't say anything about Mary"), whereas other idioms cannot be lexically altered without losing their figurative meanings (e.g., John kicked the bucket, meaning "John died," loses its idiomatic meaning when changed into John kicked the pail). Our hypothesis was that the lexical flexibility of idioms is determined by speakers' assumptions about the ways in which parts of idioms contribute to their figurative interpretations as a whole. The results of the three experiments indicated that idioms whose individual semantic components contribute to their overall figurative meanings (e.g., go out on a limb) were judged as less disrupted by changes in their lexical items (e.g., go out on a branch) than were nondecomposable idioms (e.g., kick the bucket) when their individual words were altered (e.g., punt the pail). These findings lend support to the idea that both the syntactic productivity and the lexical makeup of idioms are matters of degree, depending on the idioms' compositional properties. This conclusion suggests that idioms do not form a unique class of linguistic items, but share many of the properties of more literal language.

Adult↗