S/he is not the Most Sparkling Drink in the Pub Global Vs. Local Cue – Which Reigns Supreme?

Abstract

ABSTRACT Within the framework of the Defaultness Hypothesis, automatic responses to “fully abstract phrasal patterns,” involving strong attenuation of highly positive concepts, are sarcastic. Such global constructional responses will be derived by default once their stimuli are free of factors known to affect processing of nonliteralness. They should, therefore, be (a) novel; (b), free of local cues such as semantic anomaly or internal incongruity; and (c) free of contextual support. Here we weigh global non-metaphorical constructions, meeting conditions (a-c) for defaultness (S/he is not the most fascinating speaker around) against novel, nondefault metaphorical counterparts, not meeting these conditions (S/he is not the most sparkling drink in the pub). The metaphorical constructions, involving a local, semantically anomalous cue, further deautomatize conventionalized counterparts (S/he is not the sharpest pencil in the box), which renders them optimally innovative. Given that the metaphorical constructions involve local semantic anomaly, this precludes them from being derived by default (see (b) above). Despite this difference between the two kinds of (metaphorical and non-metaphorical) stimuli, they all share the same global construction, involving strong attenuation of highly positive concepts. Results of four offline, corpus-based experiments, and three corpus-based studies show that both these (metaphorical and non-metaphorical) constructions are interpreted sarcastically. As such, they further affect text production which often unfolds via mirroring default rather than nondefault responses. Still, the innovative metaphorical uses an increased degree of sarcasm, rendering these stimuli more pleasing. Although the global constructional responses reign supreme, the optimally innovative metaphoricalness contributes to both, the sarcastic nature of the responses and their hedonic effects.