Processing of Conventional and Novel Conceptual Metaphors by Korean L2 Learners of English: An ERP Study

Abstract

The processing of conventional and novel conceptual metaphorical sentences by Korean L2 learners of English were examined with event-related potentials (ERPs). The four experimental conditions adopted from Lai et al. (2009) were used in this study; two factors such as [familiar] and [interpretable] produced literal, conventional metaphoric, novel metaphoric, and anomalous sentences. In particular, conventional metaphors were constructed based on the Contemporary Theory of Metaphor and were familiar and readily interpretable. Novel metaphors were unfamiliar and harder to interpret. We compared ERPs elicited by the same target word that ends all the four conditions. Amplitudes of the N400 ERP component (280-400 ms) were more negative for conventional metaphors, novel metaphors, and anomalous sentences, compared with literal sentences. Within the late window (400-520 ms), ERPs associated with the first three conditions remained to be more negative than the last literal sentences. The results showed that Korean learners of English were able to differentiate conventional metaphors from literal sentences in the early window, but were not able to resolve conventional metaphors meaningfully in the late window.