What is it about?
I report an empirical study deriving from a Gestalt-Interactionist approach to metaphor. Both the type of figurative expression (metaphor or simile) and the form of the expression (A is B or B is A) were manipulated in a factorial design. Subjects were asked to evaluate a given figurative expression both with regard to complexity and interest, and in terms of the degree of imageability of the tenor and the vehicle. As hypothesized, the design factors interacted in their influence on these ratings. Specifically, both the metaphor in standard form and the simile in reversed form received relatively higher ratings in degree of interest aroused and degree of complexity, while receiving relatively lower ratings in degree of vehicle imageability.
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Perspectives
Following on from the paper published in Poetics Today, 1993, in this paper I looked at how metaphor and simile, in both standard, A is a B, and reversed, B is an A, formats would differ in terms of both comprehension and evaluation. I have returned to this topic over the years, each time with increasing depth of analysis.
Professor Joseph Glicksohn
Bar-Ilan University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Putting interaction theory to the empirical test, Pragmatics & Cognition, January 1994, John Benjamins,
DOI: 10.1075/pc.2.2.02gli.
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