Metaphor; A Survey on the Factors Related to Semantic Comprehension; their Effectiveness and Psychological Reliability

The present study is a randomized pilot project that intends to test the Graded Salience Hypothesis (Giora, 1997), to investigate the major factors contributing to understanding meaning. According to Graded Salience Hypothesis, more salient meanings–coded meanings foremost on our mind due to conventionality, frequency, familiarity, or prototypicality–are accessed faster than and reach sufficient levels of activation before less salient ones. Even rich and supportive contexts which are biased in favor of less salient meanings do not inhibit activation of salient meanings. This research addressed predictions derived from this model by examining the salience of metaphor in Persian language. The primary dependent measure was RTs, and the design of this experiment was a combination of 2 Contexts (figurative, literal), 2 Types of Statements (familiar vs. unfamiliar vs. less familiar) and RTs (long, short, equal). Two types of contexts (figurative inviting and literal inviting contexts) were prepared. The software used in this experiment was designed for self-paced reading experiments. Reading latencies could be recorded with millisecond accuracy via this software. Results did not lend support to the Graded Salience Hypothesis entirely. This result shows that main hypothesis isnt approved. These results show that contrary to the Graded Salience Hypothesis, context and salience do not run in parallel, but sometimes context obstructs access to salient information and a semi serial process is expected. Also the results indicated that the salient meaning in both familiar and less familiar figurative expressions is mostly figurative meaning. Also salient meaning in unfamiliar metaphors is first figurative meaning, but after the passage of time, literal meaning is activated.