Chinese Metaphor Processing: An fMRI Study

doi:10.12002/j.bisu.113

Abstract

Abstract: By means of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the processing of Chinese metaphors and their corresponding Chinese literal sentences of both NP+V+NP and NP+Vbe+NP sentence patterns is observed in order to explore the laws of Chinese metaphor processing. It is found that the comprehension of metaphorical sentences is more demanding than that of literal sentences as more activation can be seen from the metaphor processing; that both hemispheres do not play the same role to the contribution of novel metaphor processing and conventional metaphor processing, because the processing of conventional metaphors is mainly activated on the left hemisphere while the processing of novel metaphors or seudo-sentences also elicits the activation on the right hemisphere, which proves that both hemispheres are involved in the comprehension of Chinese metaphors in general, but with more involvement of the right hemisphere for novel metaphors than for conventional metaphors in particular; that both metaphors and literal sentences elicit extensive bilateral activation, including the Broca’s area and the Wernicke area on the left, which reveals that the typical language brain areas are involved in all language processing; and that the NP+V+NP processing will engage in more brain resources than the NP+Vbe+NP processing whether we compared these two sentence patterns by literal sentences or by metaphors. Generally speaking, our study supports the view of integration of whole brain processing and the Career of Metaphor Hypothesis concerning the Chinese metaphor processing.

Keywords: Chinese metaphor; fMRI; processing brain areas; Career of Metaphor Hypothesis

摘要： 为了探求汉语隐喻大脑加工的规律，本研究采用fMRI手段，对“NP＋Vbe＋NP”和“NP＋V＋NP”句型的汉语本义句和隐喻句的加工进行对比考察。研究发现：隐喻句加工难于本义句加工；相较而言，新颖隐喻加工与常规隐喻加工在神经机制上既有联系又有区别，二者都需要大脑两半球的协同合作，但是大脑两半球的功能不同，常规隐喻加工主要涉及左脑，而新颖隐喻和假句的加工会更多地涉及右脑；传统语言区（包括左脑额中回和颞上回）的激活表明，所有的语言加工都会共享语言加工神经网络；NP+V+NP句型与NP+Vbe+NP句型相比，无论是NP+V+NP句型的本义句或隐喻句加工都比对应的NP+Vbe+NP句型的本义句或隐喻句加工动用更多的神经资源。总的结果支持隐喻加工的全脑配合理论和等级凸显假说。

关键词: 汉语隐喻, fMRI, 加工脑区, 隐喻生涯假说

CLC Number:

H315.9

WANG Xiaolu / HE Daili. Chinese Metaphor Processing: An fMRI Study[J]. Journal of Beijing International Studies University, 2017, 39(4): 70-94.

王小潞　何代丽. 汉语隐喻加工的fMRI研究[J]. 北京第二外国语学院学报, 2017, 39(4): 70-94.

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