ABSTRACT

Native speakers understand familiar idioms (e.g., over the moon) and conventional metaphors (e.g., describing time as a doctor) quickly and easily. In two eye-tracking studies we considered how native speakers are able to make sense of fundamentally unfamiliar figurative expressions. In Experiment 1 compared with literal paraphrases of the same meaning, known idioms had a clear advantage, unknown idioms showed a significant disadvantage, and conventional metaphors showed no difference between figurative and literal versions. In Experiment 2 readers saw known and unknown idioms (or paraphrases) in contexts that either supported the intended meaning or were neutral. Strength of context had minimal effect on reading patterns for either idiom type and had no effect when readers were asked to subsequently identify the meaning. Context may be helpful in terms of sense selection but not when new senses need to be generated, at which point aspects such as transparency become more important.

摘要

母语为母语的人可以快速，轻松地理解熟悉的习惯用法（例如，在月球上）和传统隐喻（例如，将时间描述为医生）。在两项眼动追踪研究中，我们考虑了以母语为母语的人如何能够从根本上理解陌生的事物形象化的表达。在实验1中，与具有相同含义的文字释义相比，已知的成语有明显的优势，未知的成语表现出明显的劣势，而传统的隐喻则没有比喻性的比喻。在实验2中，读者在支持预期含义或中立的上下文中看到了已知和未知的成语（或释义）。语境的强度对这两种习语类型的阅读模式影响很小，而当要求读者随后识别其含义时则没有影响。在感官选择方面，上下文可能会有所帮助，但在需要生成新感官时则无济于事，这时诸如透明性等方面变得更加重要。