Interpretation potential of mass media metaphor

The article is devoted to the analysis of the interpretation possibilities of the mass media metaphor. The aim of the work is to identify the semantic spheres that beget a metaphor in the modern language of the Ukrainian mass media. This work demonstrates the mechanism of metaphor production: components of a new meaning, components of metaphorical meaning, and the structure of metaphorical transference. The problems associated with the interpretation of metaphors are considered. The cognitive process of creating the investigated units represents the types of metaphorical transference. The metaphor is designed to simplify the process of perceiving complex new material. In 2000-2020 a new wave of metaphorical productivity was marked by the terms of the natural sciences during the timeframe of the research. As a result of the analysis, the metaphors of the political and economic discourses of the mass media were investigated, taking into account the semantic, cognitive-pragmatic approaches. On the basis of this material, the main trends in the development of the modern language of the Ukrainian mass media are revealed and the interpretative and evaluative potential of the media metaphor is determined.

Just Open Your Mind? A Randomized, Controlled Study on the Effects of Meditation on Creativity

Creativity is a crucial prerequisite for innovation, successful problem solving, and self-expression, but how do we affect creative thinking in a positive way? The present study investigated the effects of open monitoring meditation (OMM) on creativity. We proposed that OMM will benefit creativity in metaphor production by cognitive flexibility (CF) enhancement. In the main study, participants were randomly assigned to one of the three groups: meditation, active, and passive controls. The first two groups performed an audio-guided task (real meditation or a narrative on house plants) for 2 weeks, and the third one had no task. Pre- and post-tests included measures of metaphor production, CF, state, sustained attention, attention shifting, and intelligence. We found no significant intra- or intergroup differences that would suggest OMM effects on creativity. Further, no links were found between measures of metaphor creativity and CF. Findings reveal potential challenges of using meditation as a cognitive enhancement tool. Methodological issues concerning meditation research, as well as creativity and CF measures, are discussed.

When Figurative Language Goes off the Rails and under the Bus: Fluid Intelligence, Openness to Experience, and the Production of Poor Metaphors

The present research examined the varieties of poor metaphors to gain insight into the cognitive processes involved in generating creative ones. Drawing upon data from two published studies as well as a new sample, adults’ open-ended responses to different metaphor prompts were categorized. Poor metaphors fell into two broad clusters. Non-metaphors—responses that failed to meet the basic task requirements—consisted of “adjective slips” (describing the topic adjectivally instead of figuratively), “wayward attributes” (attributing the wrong property to the topic), and “off-topic idioms” (describing the wrong topic). Bad metaphors—real metaphors that were unanimously judged as uncreative—consisted of “exemplary exemplars” (vehicles that lacked semantic distance and thus seemed trite) and “retrieved clichés” (pulling a dead metaphor from memory). Overall, people higher in fluid intelligence (Gf) were more likely to generate a real metaphor, and their metaphor was less likely to be a bad one. People higher in Openness to Experience, in contrast, were more likely to generate real metaphors but not more or less likely to generate bad ones. Scraping the bottom of the response barrel suggests that creative metaphor production is a particularly complex form of creative thought.

How is Chinese English Learners’ L2 Metaphoric Competence Related to That of L1? An E-Prime-Based Multi-Dimensional Study

Even though transfer from L1 to L2 has been repeatedly tested and confirmed, there is little literature and consensus on how and to what extent the L1 metaphoric competence could be related to that of L2. Based on the metaphor acceptability and response time of E-Prime experiments and two written tests of comprehension and production of metaphors on 94 intermediate Chinese-speaking university students of English, this study compares Chinese English learners’ similarities and differences in four dimensions (metaphor acceptability, identification speed, metaphor comprehension, and metaphor production) of metaphoric competence between L1 and L2 (here is Chinese and English). The results demonstrate that: Chinese English learners’ L1 metaphoric competence is significantly better than that of L2; their L2 metaphoric competence is significantly correlated to that of L1, and the regression analysis shows that L1 metaphoric competence has a significant prediction of that of L2. These findings enlighten us to greatly cultivate metaphoric competence in foreign language teaching and help students create connection between L1 and L2 metaphoric competence. This study also provides statistical support for the claim that metaphoric competence is a general trans-language cognitive ability for Chinese English learners.

S108. AUTOMATED DETECTION OF INCREASED METAPHOR PRODUCTION IN OPEN-ENDED SPEECH IN SCHIZOPHRENIA AND ITS RISK STATES

Background Clinicians have long observed peculiarities in the use of figurative language by individuals with schizophrenia, as part of larger expressive deficits. Natural language processing has been used to predict psychosis onset (Bedi et al., 2015; Corcoran et al., 2018), identifying classifiers such as semantic coherence. Here we examine use of metaphor across the psychosis spectrum. Methods Participant groups across the psychosis spectrum (healthy controls, clinical high risk for psychosis and individuals with schizophrenia) participated in open-ended interviews lasting approximately one hour and encouraged to express themselves narratively. Each interview was transcribed, then deidentified and run through the metaphor analysis algorithm. The results were then used to determine an overall metaphor frequency rate for each participant/transcript. Results The algorithm detected a significantly higher proportion of the words in transcripts of patients with schizophrenia as metaphorical (6.5%) than in healthy controls’ transcripts (5.7%) (p < 0.01, t57 = 2.68). Patients in the CHR group also produced more metaphorical words tagged by the algorithm (6.6%; p < 0.01, t95 = 3.69). Discussion These results demonstrate that metaphor usage, as measured using automated algorithms, is a robust and powerful indicator of symptoms, whether defined via current schizophrenia diagnosis or by clinical high-risk status. The ability to estimate metaphoric content in speech and written samples can be a significant contribution to the systemization of psychosis symptoms and and may be useful as a screen for the general population to identify individuals who may be at risk for psychosis.

Thinking out of the box

Metaphor production is a creative process of thinking out of the box, which can be of great communicative value to language users. In this study, we explored how metaphor production can be stimulated by different types of cues in an internet environment. Participants (N = 318) were invited to co-create a metaphorical campaign slogan in a social media setting with randomly selected sets of real campaign slogans. We measured how linguistic (metaphor markers) and social media cues (likes) prompt direct metaphor. Results show that the metaphor marker ‘so’ stimulated metaphor production. Likes for previously posted metaphorical slogans did not affect the creation of a metaphor. We found a correlation between the actual and self-perceived creativity of the co-created slogans. Besides, the co-created metaphors both echoed and deviated from previously posted campaign slogans, leading to different degrees of creativity. Co-creation in a social media setting seems a fruitful environment for metaphor production.