Adjective Metaphors Evoke Negative Meanings

Previous metaphor studies have paid much attention to nominal metaphors and predicative metaphors, but little attention has been given to adjective metaphors. Although some studies have focused on adjective metaphors, they only examined differences in the acceptability of various types of adjective metaphors. This paper explores the cognitive effects evoked by adjective metaphors. Three psychological experiments revealed that (1) adjective metaphors, especially those modified by color adjectives, tend to evoke negative effect; (2) although the meanings of metaphors are basically affected by the meanings of their vehicles, when a vehicle has a neutral meaning, negative meanings are evoked most frequently for adjective metaphors compared to nominal and predicative metaphors; (3) negative meanings evoked by adjective metaphors are related to poeticness, and poetic metaphors evoke negative meanings more easily than less poetic metaphors. Our research sheds new light on studies of the use of metaphor, which is one of the most basic human cognitive abilities.

过往的隐喻研究多聚焦于名词性隐喻与谓词性隐喻，却鲜少关注形容词性隐喻。尽管已有部分研究涉足形容词性隐喻领域，但仅针对不同类型形容词性隐喻的可接受性差异展开了探讨。本研究旨在探究形容词性隐喻所引发的认知效应。三项心理学实验结果显示：其一，形容词性隐喻——尤其是受色彩形容词修饰的此类隐喻——更易引发负面效应；其二，尽管隐喻的语义本质上受其喻体语义的制约，但当喻体语义中性时，相较于名词性隐喻与谓词性隐喻，形容词性隐喻最易催生负面语义解读；其三，形容词性隐喻所引发的负面语义解读与诗意性呈正相关，且相较于诗意性较弱的隐喻，富有诗意的隐喻更易触发负面语义解读。本研究为隐喻运用研究提供了全新视角，而隐喻本身正是人类最基础的认知能力之一。