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Bilingual Processing Mechanisms of Scientific Metaphors and Conventional Metaphors: Evidence via a Contrastive Event-Related Potentials Study

To study the different mechanisms of understanding figurative language in a speaker’s native language (L1) and their second language (L2), this study investigated how scientific metaphors in Chinese (L1) and English (L2) are electrophysiologically processed via event-related potential experimentatio...

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Autores principales: Tang, Xuemei, Shen, Lexian, Yang, Peng, Huang, Yanhong, Huang, Shaojuan, Huang, Min, Ren, Wei
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9251417/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35795431
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.894114
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author Tang, Xuemei
Shen, Lexian
Yang, Peng
Huang, Yanhong
Huang, Shaojuan
Huang, Min
Ren, Wei
author_facet Tang, Xuemei
Shen, Lexian
Yang, Peng
Huang, Yanhong
Huang, Shaojuan
Huang, Min
Ren, Wei
author_sort Tang, Xuemei
collection PubMed
description To study the different mechanisms of understanding figurative language in a speaker’s native language (L1) and their second language (L2), this study investigated how scientific metaphors in Chinese (L1) and English (L2) are electrophysiologically processed via event-related potential experimentation. Compared with the metaphors from daily life or in literary works, scientific metaphors tend to involve both a more complicated context structure and a distinct knowledge-inferencing process. During the N400 time window (300–500 ms), English scientific metaphors elicited more negative N400s than Chinese ones at the parietal region. In the late positive component (LPC) time window (550–800 ms), English scientific metaphors elicited less positive LPCs than Chinese ones at the parietal region, and larger late negativities encompassing smaller areas of the brain. The findings might indicate that for late unbalanced bilingual speakers, L2 scientific metaphor comprehension requires more effort in information retrieval or access to the non-literal route. Altogether, the possible findings are that non-native and non-dominant language processing involves decreased automaticity of cognitive mechanisms, and decreased sensitivity to the levels of conventionality of metaphoric meanings.
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spelling pubmed-92514172022-07-05 Bilingual Processing Mechanisms of Scientific Metaphors and Conventional Metaphors: Evidence via a Contrastive Event-Related Potentials Study Tang, Xuemei Shen, Lexian Yang, Peng Huang, Yanhong Huang, Shaojuan Huang, Min Ren, Wei Front Psychol Psychology To study the different mechanisms of understanding figurative language in a speaker’s native language (L1) and their second language (L2), this study investigated how scientific metaphors in Chinese (L1) and English (L2) are electrophysiologically processed via event-related potential experimentation. Compared with the metaphors from daily life or in literary works, scientific metaphors tend to involve both a more complicated context structure and a distinct knowledge-inferencing process. During the N400 time window (300–500 ms), English scientific metaphors elicited more negative N400s than Chinese ones at the parietal region. In the late positive component (LPC) time window (550–800 ms), English scientific metaphors elicited less positive LPCs than Chinese ones at the parietal region, and larger late negativities encompassing smaller areas of the brain. The findings might indicate that for late unbalanced bilingual speakers, L2 scientific metaphor comprehension requires more effort in information retrieval or access to the non-literal route. Altogether, the possible findings are that non-native and non-dominant language processing involves decreased automaticity of cognitive mechanisms, and decreased sensitivity to the levels of conventionality of metaphoric meanings. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-06-20 /pmc/articles/PMC9251417/ /pubmed/35795431 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.894114 Text en Copyright © 2022 Tang, Shen, Yang, Huang, Huang, Huang and Ren. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Tang, Xuemei
Shen, Lexian
Yang, Peng
Huang, Yanhong
Huang, Shaojuan
Huang, Min
Ren, Wei
Bilingual Processing Mechanisms of Scientific Metaphors and Conventional Metaphors: Evidence via a Contrastive Event-Related Potentials Study
title Bilingual Processing Mechanisms of Scientific Metaphors and Conventional Metaphors: Evidence via a Contrastive Event-Related Potentials Study
title_full Bilingual Processing Mechanisms of Scientific Metaphors and Conventional Metaphors: Evidence via a Contrastive Event-Related Potentials Study
title_fullStr Bilingual Processing Mechanisms of Scientific Metaphors and Conventional Metaphors: Evidence via a Contrastive Event-Related Potentials Study
title_full_unstemmed Bilingual Processing Mechanisms of Scientific Metaphors and Conventional Metaphors: Evidence via a Contrastive Event-Related Potentials Study
title_short Bilingual Processing Mechanisms of Scientific Metaphors and Conventional Metaphors: Evidence via a Contrastive Event-Related Potentials Study
title_sort bilingual processing mechanisms of scientific metaphors and conventional metaphors: evidence via a contrastive event-related potentials study
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9251417/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35795431
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.894114
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