Processing Conventional Conceptual Metaphors in Persian: A Corpus-Based Psycholinguistic Study

Area of Science:

• Psycholinguistics
• Cognitive Linguistics
• Corpus Linguistics

Background:

• Psycholinguistic processing of conceptual metaphors yields inconsistent findings.
• Experimental studies often lack objective, corpus-based linguistic stimuli for metaphor processing.

Purpose of the Study:

• Investigate the processing of conventional metaphoric expressions in Persian.
• Determine if conventional metaphors activate conceptual metaphors using corpus data.
• Address criticisms regarding intuition-based stimuli in metaphor research.

Main Methods:

• A reading time experiment was conducted with 55 Persian speakers.
• Stimuli included scenarios with non-conventional metaphors, conventional metaphors, and non-metaphors.
• A 50-million-word Persian corpus was used to identify and construct experimental items.

Main Results:

• Reading times for target sentences following conventional metaphors were significantly faster than non-metaphors.
• Reading times for target sentences following conventional metaphors were slower than non-conventional metaphors.
• Conventionality weakens the activation strength of metaphoric expressions for conceptual metaphors.

Conclusions:

• Conventional metaphoric expressions do activate conceptual metaphors.
• The conventionality of a metaphor moderates its psycholinguistic processing and conceptual activation.
• Corpus-based methods offer a more objective approach to studying metaphor processing.