Understanding the Internet: Model, Metaphor, and Analogy

published or submitted for publicatio

Information and Experience in Metaphor: A Perspective From Computer Analysis

Novel linguistic metaphor can be seen as the assignment of attributes to a topic through a vehicle belonging to another domain. The experience evoked by the vehicle is a significant aspect of the meaning of the metaphor, especially for abstract metaphor, which involves more than mere physical similarity. In this article I indicate, through description of a specific model, some possibilities as well as limitations of computer processing directed toward both informative and experiential/affective aspects of metaphor. A background to the discussion is given by other computational treatments of metaphor analysis, as well as by some questions about metaphor originating in other disciplines. The approach on which the present metaphor analysis model is based is consistent with a theory of language comprehension that includes both the intent of the originator and the effect on the recipient of the metaphor. The model addresses the dual problem of (a) determining potentially salient properties of the vehicle concept, and (b) defining extensible symbolic representations of such properties, including affective and other connotations. The nature of the linguistic analysis underlying the model suggests how metaphoric expression of experiential components in abstract metaphor is dependent on the nominalization of actions and attributes. The inverse process of undoing such nominalizations in computer analysis of metaphor constitutes a translation of a metaphor to a more literal expression within the metaphor-nonmetaphor dichotomy

A study of Ilokano learners' lexical inferencing procedures through think-aloud

This study is aimed at describing and understanding the different types of processing involved when foreign language learners infer the meaning of unknown words in a written text. Pair think-aloud protocols were used to examine the lexical inferencing procedures used by college-level students. Think-aloud protocols, a version of verbal report in which participants state their thoughts and behaviors, have become increasingly popular as a means of studying learners’ comprehension processes. The informants were intermediate and advanced Ilokano language learners of high and low proficiency in the target language. Informants’ use of interlingual, intralingual, and contextual sources is examined and compared across proficiency levels. Additional strategies employed by the informants as well as individual differences were also explored. Morphology proved to be the most prolific source informants appealed to in inferring the meaning of unknown words. The general finding of this study suggests that student proficiency is not a decisive factor in successful lexical guessing. Pedagogical implications and directions for future research emerging from the study are discussed

Readers’ cognitive processes during IELTS reading tests: evidence from eye tracking

The research described in this report investigates readers' mental processes as they complete onscreen IELTS (International English Language Testing System) reading test items. It employs up-to-date eye tracking technology to research readers' eye movements and aims, among other things, to contribute to an understanding of the cognitive validity of reading test items (Glaser. 1991; Field forthcoming). Participants were a group of Malaysian undergraduates (n=71) taking an onscreen test consisting of two IELTS reading passages with a total of 11 test items. The eye movements of a random sample of these participants (n=38) were tracked. Questionnaire and stimulated recall interview data were also collected, and were important in order to interpret and explain the eye tracking data. Findings demonstrated significant differences between successful and unsuccessful test-takers on a number of dimensions, including their ability to read expeditiously (Khalifa and Weir. 2009). and their focus on particular aspects of the test items and the reading texts. This demonstrates the potential of eye tracking, in combination with post- hoc interview and questionnaire data, to offer new insights into the cognitive processes of successful and unsuccessful candidates in a reading test. It also gives unprecedented insights into the cognitive processing of successful and unsuccessful readers doing language tests. As a consequence, the findings should be of value to teachers and learners, and also to examination boards seeking to validate and prepare reading tests, as well as psycholinguists and others interested in the cognitive processes of readers

Clipped wings and the great abyss: Cognitive stylistics and implicatures in Abiezer Coppe’s ‘prophetic’ recantation

In this article, two major paradigms within cognitive stylistics, the Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) and the Conceptual Integration Theory (CIT), are applied as largely complementary approaches to discuss the scope and implicatures of the central metaphorical image of Copp’s Return to the wayes of Truth (1651), a text written by one of the most famous radical preachers of the Civil War period as a plea to be released from prison. The article will focus on how the linguistic and cultural contexts of Coppe’s prophetic writing, in their interaction with the dynamic conceptual relationships of a conceptual integration network, open up new possibilities of perspectivizing and insinuating radically different meanings and implicatures: the use of blends in Coppe’s text has a direct effect on the structure of the analogies that can be made between mental spaces, thereby triggering new meaning effects, supplementary symbolizing patterns, and unpredictable perlocutionary effects

Abduction: the logic of discovery of Grounded Theory

Grounded Theory (GT), which Anselm Strauss refers to here in an interview decades later, is one of the most successful methods ever developed and has added a more qualitative note to social research. This is, however, not a result of the c1arity and simplicity of this method established by Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss but is rather due to the fact that it counteracts the common prejudice, which is to some extent entertained in science, that theories quasi emerge by themselves from the data (without any previous theoretical input). According to this belief, one only has to evoke the theory inherent in the data by means of suitable methods, the theory would then become apparent without the active actions of scientists. The theories are thus believed to emerge slowly in a process of gradual abstraction from the data. Therefore, one of the most famous quotations from The Discovery of Grounded Theory is the following: 'Clearly, a grounded theory that is faithful to the everyday realities of the substantive area is one that has been carefully induced from the data' (Glaser & Strauss, 1967: 239). The incorrectness of such an inductive procedure has already been proven by Popper in general and with respect to GT, by Kelle (1994,2005) and by Strübing (2004: Chapter 27) in particular. Many users of GT therefore regard this approach as an inductive method and are of the opinion, that the approach signals a return to simple "Baconian" inductivism' (Haig, 1995: 2). Representative for many others, here is an example from Qualitative Research in Sociology: Grounded Theory 'is known as an inductive or ground-up approach to data analysis' (Marvasti, 2004: 84). At first the two founders of GT shared this view: 'From its beginnings the methodology of Grounded Theory has suffered from an inductivist self misunderstanding" entailed by some parts of the Discovery book. Although this inductivism plays a limited role in research work of many Grounded Theory studies (including those of the founding fathers) it has often lead to confusion especially among novices who draw their basic methodological knowledge from text books (Kelle 2005: Chapter 24)