Unlocking Second Language Novel Metaphor Processing: Behavioral and ERP Insights From First and Second-Language...

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Psycholinguistics
• Second Language Acquisition

Background:

• Novel metaphor processing offers insights into creative conceptual expansion.
• Event-related potentials (ERPs), specifically the N400 component, track semantic anomaly detection and integration.
• Previous research on novel metaphor processing primarily involved monolinguals, leaving bilinguals' second language (L2) processing understudied.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how L2 English speakers process full-sentence novel metaphors.
• To compare L2 metaphor processing with that of English monolinguals.
• To test hypotheses regarding whether L2 conceptual expansion is more effortful, efficient, or similar to L1 processing.

Main Methods:

• Employed single-trial event-related potentials (ERPs) and behavioral measures.
• Assessed L2 English users' processing of novel metaphors within naturalistic full sentences.
• Compared L2 results to a prior study on monolingual English speakers using identical experimental paradigms.

Main Results:

• L2 English users exhibited more effortful processing compared to monolinguals.
• L2 users demonstrated higher rates of sentence evaluation errors, particularly for anomalous sentences.
• ERP data revealed an N400 semantic anomaly effect in L2 users, but without significant differentiation between metaphorical, literal, or anomalous sentences, unlike the graded effect observed in monolinguals.

Conclusions:

• Novel metaphor processing in L2 is more cognitively demanding than in L1.
• Bilinguals face unique challenges in incremental processing and integration of L2 metaphorical sentences.
• Findings contribute to understanding L2 conceptual expansion and the cognitive load of processing figurative language in a non-native language.