Chapter published in:
Figurative Language – Intersubjectivity and UsageEdited by Augusto Soares da Silva
[Figurative Thought and Language 11] 2021
► pp. 241–284
On figurative ambiguity, marking, and low-salience meanings
Shir Givoni | Tel-Aviv University
Dafna Bergerbest | The Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yaffo
Rachel Giora | Tel-Aviv University
This paper discusses the phenomenon of marked
ambiguation, when more than one meaning of an ambiguity is
simultaneously applicable, and outlines an account for such marking
within the Low-Salience Marking Hypothesis.
According to this hypothesis, ambiguity markers (e.g.,
double entendre, in the full sense of the word)
boost meanings low on salience (Givoni, 2011; Givoni, Giora, and Bergerbest, 2013). Low-salience
meanings are meanings less frequent, less familiar, less
prototypical, and less conventional (Giora, 1997, 2003). Results from two experiments
conducted in Hebrew support the hypothesis. They show that marking
figurative polysemy results in higher preference and faster response
times for less-salient meanings, challenging modular (Fodor, 1983), literal-first
(Grice, 1975), and
underspecification (Frisson and
Pickering, 2001) accounts of lexical access.
Keywords: marking, figurativity, polysemy, salience, low-salience, The Low-Salience Marking Hypothesis, ambiguity processing, lexical access
Article outline
- 1.Introduction – disambiguation vs. ambiguation
- 2.The phenomenon of marking multiple meanings
- 2.1Why ambiguation? Why marking?
- 2.2Is ambiguation the same as punning?
- 2.3Does ambiguation always involve a figurative meaning and a literal meaning?
- 3.Ambiguity processing models and their predictions for marked
ambiguity
- 3.1Which meanings benefit from marking?
- 3.2The Low-Salience Marking Hypothesis
- 3.2.1Predictions
- 3.2.2Previous findings
- 4.Experiments
- 4.1Experiment 1 – an offline study
- Aim
- Participants
- Materials
- Sentences
- Probe-words
- Markers
- Pretest 1.Meaning relatedness
- Pretest 2.Meaning prevalence
- Pretest 3.Online salience
- Probe pretests summary
- Pretest 4.Marking coherence
- Procedure
- Results
- Discussion
- 4.2Experiment 2 – an online study
- Aim
- Participants
- Materials
- Procedure
- Results
- Discussion
- 4.1Experiment 1 – an offline study
- 5.General discussion
-
Acknowledgements -
Notes -
References
Published online: 19 May 2021
https://doi.org/10.1075/ftl.11.08giv
https://doi.org/10.1075/ftl.11.08giv
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