How We Understand Metaphor

When your colleague says candidly, “My lawyer is a shark,” contemporary research shows that you will understand this metaphor as easily and rapidly as you understand the statement, “My lawyer has blonde hair.” While researchers still debate how this understanding comes about, they are challenging a theory that has been a favorite since Aristotle.

Conventional wisdom suggests that metaphorical understanding happens in a three-step process. First, a listener looks for a literal meaning in a metaphor. Is the lawyer a marine animal? Second, the listener considers the context of the statement and finds no sense in it. Finally, the listener searches for a non-literal meaning that makes sense. In the review, “The Psycholinguistics of Metaphor,” published in Trends in Cognitive Science (February, 2003), Princeton psychologist Sam Glucksberg analyzes current research that challenges this long-held view. Glucksberg cites several studies that consistently show that there is no difference in the time it takes to comprehend a metaphor over a more literal assertion. This is true whether the metaphor is a well-crafted non-conventional metaphor or one that has been heard many times before. Separate studies also show that participants given metaphorically true sentences (such as “some jobs are jails”) find it difficult to categorize these as literally false.

“Like any other kind of language comprehension,” Glucksberg concludes, “metaphor comprehension is non-optional. Instead it is mandatory and automatic.” Interestingly, other studies show that metaphors are viewed as unique assertions rather than comparisons. Reading the simile, “some ideas are like diamonds,” participants in a study were likely to mention properties generally true of diamonds, such as “rare” and “valuable.” In the case of the same vehicle used in metaphor, “some ideas are diamonds,” participants mentioned a new kind of property not essential to diamonds, such as “insightful” and “creative.”

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