Cross-linguistic metaphor priming in ASL-English bilinguals
Effects of the Double Mapping Constraint
Meir’s (2010)
Double Mapping Constraint (DMC)
states the use of iconic signs in metaphors is restricted to signs that preserve the structural correspondence between the
articulators and the concrete source domain and between the concrete and metaphorical domains. We investigated ASL signers’
comprehension of English metaphors whose translations complied with the DMC (
Communication collapsed during the
meeting) or violated the DMC (
The acid ate the metal). Metaphors were preceded by the ASL
translation of the English verb, an unrelated sign, or a still video. Participants made sensibility judgments. Response times
(RTs) were faster for DMC-Compliant sentences with verb primes compared to unrelated primes or the still baseline. RTs for
DMC-Violation sentences were longer when preceded by verb primes. We propose the structured iconicity of the ASL verbs primed the
semantic features involved in the iconic mapping and these primed semantic features facilitated comprehension of DMC-Compliant
metaphors and slowed comprehension of DMC-Violation metaphors.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Method
- 2.1Participants
- 2.2Stimuli
- 2.3Procedure
- 3.Results
- 4.Discussion
- Acknowledgements
-
References
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