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Producing Figurative Expression: Theoretical, experimental and practical perspectives
Edited by John Barnden and Andrew Gargett
[Figurative Thought and Language 10] 2020
► pp. 211–236

How defaultness shapes our language production

A usage-based study of discoursal resonance with default interpretations of metaphor and sarcasm

| Tel Aviv University

The paper focuses on discourse production. It shows that language production unfolds via resonating (Du Bois, 2014) with default interpretations. Default interpretations are defined as automatic responses. However, for an automatic response to be considered a default, it has to be (i) novel; (ii) free of semantic an omaly (Beardsley, 1958) and internal incongruity (Partington, 2011); and (iii) free of contextual information, intonation, discourse markers, etc. Results show that constructions, shown to be interpreted sarcastically or metaphorically when in isolation, were processed faster than nondefault counterparts when in discourse. As a result, corpus-based studies, displaying default interpretations, show that speakers’ discourse is unfolding via utterances’ default rather than nondefault interpretations. This applies here to Hebrew but also to English, German, and Russian.

Keywords: discourse production, default interpretations, nondefault interpretations, processing, sarcasm, metaphor, literalness, negative, affirmative, corpus-based studies
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Conditions for interpretations’ defaultness: Which kind of responses would be definable as default outputs
    • 1.2The defaultness hypothesis – predictions
  • 2.On the speed superiority of default over nondefault interpretations
    • 2.1The speed superiority of default metaphorical interpretations of negative constructions over their nondefault literal counterparts
    • 2.2The speed superiority of default sarcastic interpretations of negative constructions over their nondefault literal counterparts
    • 2.3The speed superiority of default literal interpretations of affirmative sarcasm over their nondefault literal counterparts
    • 2.4The speed superiority of default literal interpretations of affirmative metaphors over their nondefault literal counterparts
    • 2.5The speed superiority of default over nondefault counterparts is insensitive to degree of figurativeness
  • 3.Resonating with default interpretations
    • 3.1Resonating with default metaphorical interpretations of negative constructions
      • 3.1.1Study 1: Distribution of default negative metaphoricity and default affirmative literalness
      • 3.1.2Study 2: Distribution of type of resonance with default metaphorical interpretations of negative constructions
    • 3.2Resonating with default sarcastic interpretations of negative constructions
      • 3.2.1Study 3: Distribution of default negative sarcasm and default affirmative literalness of the form X s/he is not
      • 3.2.2Study 4: Distribution of type of resonance with default sarcastic interpretations of negative constructions of the form X s/he is not
      • 3.2.3Study 5: Distribution of default negative sarcasm and default affirmative literalness of the form X is not her/his forte/best attribute
      • 3.2.4Study 6: Distribution of type of resonance with default sarcastic interpretations of negative constructions of the form X is not her/his forte/ best attribute
      • 3.2.5Study 7: Distribution of default negative sarcasm and default affirmative literalness of the form X is not the most Y
      • 3.2.6Study 8: Distribution of type of resonance with default sarcastic interpretations of negative constructions of the form X is not the most Y
    • 3.3Resonating with default literal interpretations of affirmative metaphor and sarcasm
      • 3.3.1Study 9: Distribution of type of resonance with default literal interpretations of affirmative sarcasm
      • 3.3.2Study 10: Distribution of type of resonance with default literal interpretations of affirmative metaphors
  • 4.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 17 December 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ftl.10.08gio
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