Relevant/Irrelevant Meanings of Topic and Vehicle in Metaphor Comprehension

Abstract

Meaning activation and suppression are used for metaphor comprehension, especially for the categorization, which is related to the vehicle's conventionality and metaphor's interactivity. In the categorization, the vehicle in a metaphor activates the metaphor-relevant meaning, but suppresses the metaphor-irrelevant meaning. However, the relationships between the strength of activation/suppression and the factors that predict the categorization have not been sufficiently examined. In addition, the previous studies did not show the meaning process of topic in metaphor comprehension. Our two experiments examined the meaning process of both topic and vehicle in metaphor comprehension by using a priming method and a meaningfulness decision task. Our experiments revealed that only the highly interactive metaphor with highly conventional vehicle activates the metaphor-relevant meaning in the vehicle, but that all metaphors suppress the metaphor-irrelevant meaning. We also revealed that the topic both as metaphor-relevant meaning and as metaphor-irrelevant meaning is activated in metaphor comprehension.