Abstract:
Degree of aptness of the nominal metaphor X is a Y or the extent to which the
metaphorical statement expresses its specific non-literal meaning and the nature of
relationship between aptness and semantic features of topic (X) and vehicle (Y) is the
subject that is addressed in this study. Conducting an experiment in which 35
undergraduate students judged degree of relevancy of 10 semantic features of topic
and vehicle of nominal metaphors, the researchers of this study sought to find how
aptness of a metaphor is related to various meaning aspects of topic and vehicle. The
instrument was a test including 20 nominal metaphors, each one followed by 10
semantic features of topic and vehicle. The participants were required to judge the
degree of relevancy of each feature on the basis of a Likert scale ranging from 0
(irrelevant) to 3 (completely relevant). The obtained results suggested that several
aspects of meaning might simultaneously be in operation throughout metaphor
comprehension. However, these aspects are not at the same level; that is, one meaning
aspect plays the dominant role, while others play a secondary role. Taking
Glucksberg‟s class-inclusion view of metaphor comprehension and Gentner‟s
structure-mapping view and based on the results obtained in the experiment, this
article presents a model according to which degree of interpretability and aptness of a
nominal metaphor is determined by degree of relevancy of a specific meaning aspect
of vehicle.
Machine summary:
"Conducting an experiment in which 35 undergraduate students judged degree of relevancy of 10 semantic features of topic and vehicle of nominal metaphors, the researchers of this study sought to find how aptness of a metaphor is related to various meaning aspects of topic and vehicle.
Taking Glucksberg’s class-inclusion view of metaphor comprehension and Gentner’s structure-mapping view and based on the results obtained in the experiment, this article presents a model according to which degree of interpretability and aptness of a nominal metaphor is determined by degree of relevancy of a specific meaning aspect of vehicle.
Drawing on this claim, Carroll (2003) says that one of the interesting features of class-inclusion model is that metaphoric utterances are not understood by resorting to any special process, thus literal and figurative meaning language are understood on the basis of the same general principles.
If the class-inclusion model of metaphor comprehension is taken, one can argue that the direct inclusion of topic in an abstract class of vehicle is mainly done on the basis of highly-relevant features, while the completely- irrelevant features are not attended throughout the process of inclusion.
Looking at it from the perspective of the structure-mapping model, one might argue that a given nominal metaphor is understood on the basis of correspondence between two specific relations, one of which is in the target (topic) domain and another one in the base (vehicle) domain."