Normative Data for Novel Nominal Metaphors, Novel Similes, Literal, and Anomalous Utterances in Polish and English
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Normative Data for Novel Nominal Metaphors, Novel Similes, Literal, and Anomalous Utterances in Polish and English Katarzyna Jankowiak1
© The Author(s) 2020
Abstract The two studies reported in the article provide normative measures for 120 novel nominal metaphors, 120 novel similes, 120 literal sentences, and 120 anomalous utterances in Polish (Study 1) and in English (Study 2). The presented set is ideally suited to addressing methodological requirements in research on metaphor processing. The critical (sentencefinal) words of each utterance were controlled for in terms of their frequency per million, number of letters and syllables. For each condition in each language, the following variables are reported: cloze probability, meaningfulness, metaphoricity, and familiarity, whose results confirm that the sentences are well-matched. Consequently, the present paper provides materials that can be employed in order to test the new as well as existing theories of metaphor comprehension. The results obtained from the series of normative tests showed the same pattern in both studies, where the comparison structure present in similes (i.e., A is like B) facilitated novel metaphor comprehension, as compared to categorical statements (i.e., A is B). It therefore indicates that comparison mechanisms might be engaged in novel meaning construction irrespectively of language-specific syntactic rules. Keywords Metaphors · Normative data · Novel nominal metaphors · Novel similes · Polish · English · Cloze probability · Meaningfulness · Familiarity · Metaphoricity · Comparison mechanisms
Introduction In studies on language processing, the use of well-controlled stimuli is crucial, especially in research employing behavioral or neuroimaging methods, whose results are highly influenced by stimuli characteristics, including, but not limited to, word frequency, meaningfulness, and familiarity (Balota et al. 2006). It is therefore of a great importance to ensure that the stimuli used in such studies have been thoroughly normed for the variables that are important to control for, taking into account the specific research questions that are to be addressed in the experiment proper. Oftentimes, researchers employing quantitative research methods use a shared database of the stimuli that have already been appropriately * Katarzyna Jankowiak [email protected] 1
Faculty of English, Adam Mickiewicz University, Grunwaldzka 6, 60‑780 Poznan, Poland
13
Vol.:(0123456789)
Journal of Psycholinguistic Research
normed so as to ensure consistency across different projects and laboratories, where the studies are conducted (Campbell and Raney 2016). The present paper provides a database on Polish (Study 1) and English (Study 2) novel nominal metaphors, novel similes, literal, and anomalous sentences that have all been normed on a number of factors in order to ensure that they can effectively be employed in further studies on novel metaphoric and literal language processing. Metaphoric utterances, such as That lawyer is a shark, a
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