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Conceptual metaphor activation in Chinese–English bilinguals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 August 2022

Huilan Yang Open the ORCID record for Huilan Yang [Opens in a new window] ,
J. Nick Reid  and
Yuru Mei
Huilan Yang*
Affiliation:
Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China
J. Nick Reid*
Affiliation:
University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Yuru Mei
Affiliation:
Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China
*
Address for correspondence: Huilan Yang, Department of Foreign Languages, Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou, 310018, China (e-mail: yanghuilan@mail.zjgsu.edu.cn); or Nick Reid, Department of Psychology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, R3T 2N2, Canada (e-mail: jeffreynicholas.reid@umanitoba.ca).
Address for correspondence: Huilan Yang, Department of Foreign Languages, Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou, 310018, China (e-mail: yanghuilan@mail.zjgsu.edu.cn); or Nick Reid, Department of Psychology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, R3T 2N2, Canada (e-mail: jeffreynicholas.reid@umanitoba.ca).
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Abstract

An episodic memory experiment was conducted to examine whether “conceptual metaphors” influence how metaphorical expressions are processed and encoded into memory. Forty Chinese–English bilinguals read lists of expressions in their L1 and L2. The data revealed that after reading a series of metaphorical expressions based on the same underlying conceptual metaphor, participants falsely recognized new sentences that instantiated the same conceptual metaphor mapping more often than control sentences that did not share this mapping. This false memory effect was robust in both participants’ L1 and L2, with the only difference between languages being that participants showed more memory errors for literal sentences related to the source domain of the conceptual metaphors when reading in their second language (i.e., English). These data suggest that although bilinguals can access the appropriate conceptual metaphors in their second language, they have difficulty inhibiting literal meaning when processing metaphorical statements.

Keywords

conceptual metaphor theoryfalse memorybilingualism
Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , March 2023 , pp. 345 - 355
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

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