Raymond Bertram (Turku): Aika on varas and dreams are like movies: Eye movement studies on processing metaphors and similes in L1 and L2

15. novembril peab Raymond Bertram Turu Ülikoolist TÜlingu ettekande teemal "Aika on varas and dreams are like movies: Eye movement studies on processing metaphors and similes in L1 and L2". Kõik huvilised on oodatud ettekannet kuulama kell 16.00-17.15 aadressil Ülikooli 18 auditooriumis 139. Loe ettekande teese alt poolt. Kogu semestri TÜlingu kava on leitav siin.

Teesid:

Operating in one’s nonnative language can be challenging in general, but differences between L1 and L2 speakers may be even enlarged in case of figurative language processing. The current eye movement study investigates how Finnish native speakers process figurative language expressions like written metaphors (dreams are movies) and similes (dreams are like movies). A metaphor expresses a relationship of its constituent parts called a topic (dreams) and a vehicle (movies), in similes the relationship is made more explicit by adding the comparative word 'like'. Experiment 1 investigate the processing of such figurative expressions in L2 English. Experiment 2 directly compares the processing of these expressions in L1 Finnish and L2 English. Identical topic–vehicle pairs were used in both the metaphor and simile conditions. After reading, participants evaluated familiarity of each pair. English proficiency was measured using the Bilingual-language Profile Questionnaire and the Lexical Test for Advanced Learners of English. The results of Experiment 1 showed that readers were more likely to regress within metaphors than within similes, indicating that processing L2 metaphors requires more processing effort than processing L2 similes. The familiarity of a metaphor and L2 English proficiency modulated this effect. The results of Experiment 2 will be revealed during the presentation. The results are discussed in the light of current theories on figurative language processing.