Rachel Giora

Understanding figurative and literal language: The graded salience hypothesis

In this study I lest the prevalent Claims among contemporary psycholinguists that understanding metaphor does not involve a special process, and that it is essentially identical to understanding literal language. Particularly, I examine the claims that figurative language does not involve processing the surface literal meaning (e.g., Gibbs 1984), and that its comprehension is not processing-intensive, because it does not involve a trigger (e.g., Keysar 1989). A critique, review and reinterpretation ofa number of contemporary researches on literal and figurative language reveal that figurative and literal language use are governed by a general principle of salience: Salient meanings (e.g., conventional frequent, familiär, enhanced by prior context) are processed first. Thus, for example, when the most salient meaning is intended (äs in, e.g., the figurative meaning of conventional Idioms), it is accessed directly, without having toprocess the less salient (literal) meaning first (Gibbs 1980). However, when a less rather than a more salient meaning is intended (e.g., the metaphoric meaning ofnovel metaphors, the literal meaning of conventional Idioms, or a novel Interpretation ofa highly conventional literal expression) comprehension seems to involve a sequential process, upon which the more salient meaning is processed initially, before the intended meaning is derived (Blasko and Connine 1993; Gerrig 1989; Gibbs 1980; Gregory and Mergler 1990). Parallel processing is induced when more than one meaning is salient. For instance, conventional metaphors whose metaphoric and literal meanings are equally salient, are processed initially both literally and metaphorically (Blasko and Connine 1993). The directl sequential process debate, then, can be reconciled: Different linguistic expressions ( salient-less salient) may tap different (direct/parallel/sequential) processes.

On irony and negation

In this article, irony is viewed as a mode of indirect negation. Based on this view, interpreting irony does not involve canceling the indirectly negated message and replacing it with the implicated one (as contended by, e.g., Clark & Gerrig, 1984; Grice, 1975). Rather, irony understanding involves processing both the negated and implicated messages, so that the difference between them may be computed. This view thus differs from the view which assumes that irony involves only one interpretation (e.g., Gibbs, 1986a; Sperber & Wilson, 1981; Wilson & Sperber, 1992). Holding that irony activates both the literal/explicit and the ironic/implicated meanings predicts that irony will be more difficult to understand than a nonironic use of the same utterance. Reanalysis of previous findings (Gibbs, 1986a) evinces that irony takes longer to process than nonironic use of the same utterance. Though irony is more difficult to understand than nonironic language, speakers apply this mode for certain communicative goals...

On the priority of salient meanings: Studies of literal and figurative language

Abstract Instead of postulating the priority of literal meaning (see e.g., Grice, 1975; Searle, 1979), the present paper adduces evidence in support of the priority of salient meanings (for a similar view see Recanati, 1995). The salient meaning of a word or an expression is its lexicalized meaning, i.e., the meaning retrievable from the mental lexicon rather than from the context (e.g., the literal meaning of novel metaphors but not their intended, nonliteral meaning made available by context, see Giora, 1997). Factors contributing to (degrees of) lexical salience are e.g., conventionality, frequency, and familiarity. Research into the processes involved in comprehension of familiar and novel instances of metaphors, idioms, and irony demonstrates that salient meanings enjoy a privileged status: They are always accessed, and always initially, regardless of context. The findings reported here tie up with previous findings (e.g., Swinney, 1979; Gernsbacher, 1990; Rayner et al., 1994) which argue against the selective access view of context. They show that, contrary to the received view (see Gibbs, 1994, for a review), even rich and supportive contexts which are biased in favor of less salient meanings do not inhibit activation of salient meanings.

Differential Effects of Right- and Left-Hemisphere Damage on Understanding Sarcasm and Metaphor

This article reports the findings of a single study examining irony in talk among friends. Sixty-two 10-min conversations between college students and their friends were recorded and analyzed. Five main types of irony were found: jocularity, sarcasm, hyperbole, rhetorical questions, and understatements. These different forms of ironic language were part of 8% of all conversational turns. Analysis of these utterances revealed varying linguistic and social patterns and suggested several constraints on how and why people achieve ironic meaning. The implications of this conclusion for psychological theories of irony are discussed.Two subtests-Sarcasm Comprehension and Metaphor Comprehension-of Gardner and Brownells (1986) Right Hemisphere Communication Battery, adapted to Hebrew, were administered to 27 right-brain-damaged (RBD) patients, 31 left-brain-damaged (LBD) patients, and 21 age-matched normal controls. RBD patients tended to score somewhat lower than LBD patients on Sarcasm Comprehension and higher than LBD patients on Metaphor Comprehension. Both patient groups showed a significant impairment in Sarcasm Comprehension relative to normal controls. The difference between RBD patients and normals in Metaphor Comprehension did not reach significance, but there was a significant disadvantage to LBD patients relative to both RBD patients and normal controls. Significant negative correlations between test scores and lesion extent were found for Sarcasm Comprehension in left middle and inferior frontal gyri, and for Metaphor Comprehension in left middle temporal gyrus and the junctional area of the superior temporal and supramar...

Literal vs. figurative language: Different or equal?

Abstract Are literal and nonliteral utterances processed differently or do they follow the same comprehension routes? Relying on intuition, we might expect them to differ. Recent findings, however, do not corroborate this intuition. Evidence from research into moment by moment comprehension demonstrates that such questions are irrelevant to early comprehension processes. And although later integration processes seem more adept at distinguishing literal language from nonliteral language, this conclusion is also unwarranted. Instead, the factor that best accounts for differences occurring early in comprehension is the degree of salience of the instances involved (Giora, Rachel, 1997. Understanding figurative and literal language: The graded salience hypothesis. Cognitive Linguistics 7: 183–206; Giora, Rachel, 1999. On the priority of salient meanings: Studies of literal and figurative language. Journal of Pragmatics 31, 919–929; Giora, Rachel, in press. On our mind: Salience, context, and figurative language. New York: Oxford University Press). Later processes, however, are governed by a functional principle that also does not distinguish between literal nonliteral language.

On understanding familiar and less-familiar figurative language☆

Abstract Findings of three experiments are consistent with the graded salience hypothesis (Giora, 1997), according to which salient meanings should be processed initially before less salient meanings are activated. A meaning of a word or an expression is considered salient if it can be retrieved directly from the mental lexicon. According to the graded salience hypothesis, processing familiar metaphors (which have at least two salient interpretations — the literal and the metaphoric) should involve activation of both their metaphoric and literal meanings, regardless of the type of context in which they are embedded. Processing less familiar metaphors (which have only one salient meaning — the literal) should activate the literal meaning in both types of contexts; however, in the literally biased context, it should be the only one activated. Processing familiar idioms in a context biased towards the idiomatic meaning should evoke their figurative meaning almost exclusively, because their figurative meaning is much more salient than their literal meaning. However, processing less familiar idioms in an idiomatic context should activate both their literal and idiomatic meanings, because both meanings enjoy similar salience status. In a literally biased context, familiar idioms should evoke their more salient idiomatic meaning to a greater extent than less familiar idioms. A word fragment completion test was used to measure the amount of activation of literal and figurative meanings in both literally and figuratively biased contexts. Subjects were presented with ‘target sentences’ (metaphors or idioms) at the end of either figuratively or literally biased contexts. They were asked to complete fragmented words (such as t_b_e) with the first word that came to mind. The target words were related to either the figurative or the literal meaning of the target sentence, so that activation of the different meanings could be assessed. Findings reveal that, contrary to current beliefs, metaphor interpretation involves processing the literal meaning. They further reveal that metaphor and literal interpretations do not involve equivalent processes.

Irony: Context and Salience

Two experiments test a graded salience account of irony processing (Giora, Fein, & Schwartz, 1998). Experiment 1 shows that, as predicted, less familiar targets embedded in ironically biasing contexts facilitate only the salient literal meaning initially: 150 msec after their offset. However, 1,000 msec after their offset, the less salient ironic meaning becomes available and the literal meaning is still as active. In contrast, familiar ironies facilitate both their salient literal and ironic meanings initially: 150 msec after their offset. Results do not change significantly after a 1,000-msec delay. In the literally biasing contexts, less familiar ironies facilitate only the salient literal meaning. In contrast, familiar ironies facilitate both their salient literal and ironic meanings under both interstimulus interval conditions, as predicted. Experiment 2 confirms that these findings were affected by the target sentences rather than by the contexts themselves. In Experiment 2, the contexts were presen...

Weapons of Mass Distraction: Optimal Innovation and Pleasure Ratings

In 6 experiments we test the Optimal Innovation Hypothesis, according to which an optimally innovative stimulus, such that induces a novel response while allowing for the recovery of a salient one (Giora, 1997b, 2003), would be rated as more pleasing than either a more or a less familiar stimulus. Experiment 1 shows that it is the stimulus that meets the requirements for optimal innovativeness that is most pleasurable. Reading times obtained in Experiment 2 support the assumption that the stimuli found most pleasurable involve processing a salient meaning. Experiment 3 corroborates the results of Experiment 1 and Experiment 2, showing that they also hold for identical (rather than different) stimuli. Experiment 4 controls for the possibility that the lengthy reading times found earlier might reflect lack of understanding. Experiment 5 shows that optimal innovation supersedes figurativity. Experiment 6 demonstrates that the Optimal Innovation Hypothesis applies to nonverbal stimuli as well.

On the cognitive aspects of the joke

Abstract The present study of the mechanism of humor concentrates on the notion of surprise in semantic jokes. It explicates the ‘grammar’ of the joke and attempts to differentiate it from both the standard informative text on the one hand, and the ‘witty’ texts on the other. Both the ‘grammar’ of standard informative texts and the ‘grammar’ of the joke derive from principles regulating concept formation. In previous works (Giora 1985, 1988), I showed that categorial organization as delineated by Rosch (1973) and Rosch and Mervis (1975) for example, is applicable to the structure of informative texts. In this study I consider the structure of the joke along the same lines. Given the conditions for text well-formedness (the ‘Relevance Requirement’ (e.g., Grice 1975, Giora 1985) and the ‘Graded Informativeness Requirement’ (Giora 1988, following Grice 1975, Shannon 1951, Attneave 1959)), a joke is well-formed if and only if it obeys the ‘Relevance Requirement’, violates the ‘Graded Informativeness Requirement’ (the ‘Marked Informativeness Requirement’) and forces the reader to cancel the immediate unmarked interpretation of the text and replace it with a marked interpretation. The notion of markedness relies on categorial internal structuring which differentiates between the cognitive status of the prototype (the unmarked member) and the marginal status of the marked member.

How metaphors influence semantic relatedness judgments: The role of the right frontal cortex

We used event-related fMRI (ER-fMRI) to test the hypothesis that metaphors bias cognitive processing of semantic relatedness towards a search for a wider range of associations. Twelve right-handed male volunteers read a mixture of metaphoric and literal sentences, each sentence being followed by a single word, which could be semantically related or not to the preceding sentence context. We found that judging unrelated words as contextually irrelevant was associated with increased blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) signal in the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex in the metaphoric but not in the literal condition. The same region was also activated when subjects endorsed a semantic relation between words and metaphoric sentence primes but not between words and literal sentence primes. We argue that these results are consistent with the notion of semantic open-endedness, whereby figurative statements bias cognitive processing towards a search for a wider range of semantic relationships compared to literal statements, and thus lend further support to the view that coarse semantic coding occurs preferentially in the right hemisphere.