Number of shared topic-vehicle significant features affects speakers’ preference for metaphorical expressions

ABSTRACT

This study examined whether the number of shared topic-vehicle significant features affects speakers’ preference for the use of metaphorical rather than literal expressions. Across five experiments, participants were asked to choose one expression that best paraphrased a given sentence from a list of options. The results of Experiments 1 and 5 showed that participants’ choice of metaphorical expression increased with greater numbers of shared topic-vehicle significant features in a given sentence. In Experiments 2 and 4, we found that the effect of the number of unshared features was smaller than that of shared significant features. Experiment 3 replicated the findings of Experiment 2 when metaphors were replaced with similes. Our results suggest that the number of topic-attributed features affects participants’ preference in the use of metaphorical expressions. Our results support the fundamental tenets of the inexpressibility hypothesis in the context of metaphor form preference.

KEYWORDS:

• Metaphor
• shared topic-vehicle significant features
• metaphorical versus literal preference

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Program for Leading Graduates Schools “Collaborative Graduate Program in Design” (Program Number K02) by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, and Technology, Japan in funding for data collection.