Abstract
The access of the non-literal meaning reflects the abstract cognitive language processing, which is influenced by various internal and external factors. Chengyu is a special kind of Chinese idioms with their own fixed forms and meanings, many of which are compositional. While their non-literal (usually figurative) meanings are more likely to be comprehended as the salient meaning, the literal meaning of these compositional idioms can also be accessed in some special contexts. Studies have shown that the biased meanings of contexts always influence the access of the dynamic meaning of ambiguous phrases. But few studies have been found concerning the influence of context position on the access of idioms. This study is to explore how contexts at different positions (pre- or post- positions) influence the agent’s access to the meaning of Chengyu. It is concerned with three contributory questions: (1) as an ambiguous phrase, how can the meaning of compositional Chengyu be accessed? (2) Can the access to the meaning of Chengyu be influenced by post-context as well as pre-context? (3) If it is true, what is the difference between the respective functions of pre- or postcontexts on the access to the meaning of Chengyu? This study adopted a self-paced reading test, which was designed in the form of 2 (position of the context: pre-context vs. post-context) Ã 2 (biased meaning of the context: salient/figurative meaning vs. non-salient/literal meaning). Subjects in the test were all college students with Chinese as mother tongue. Preliminary tests were conducted to ensure all the target Chengyu items in the test are compositional, familiar to the subjects and with the figurative meaning as their salient meanings. Chengyu items in the self-paced test showed first without context and then again with biased pre-context or post-contexts. Subjects were required to read these Chengyu items and identify their first accessed meaning or sentences with Chengyu and identify their dynamic meanings in that particular context. With SPSS 23.0, this study analyzed the reaction times that the subjects used when they pressed the keyboard as they continued their phrase or sentence reading. The statistics showed that semantic access of Chengyu included at least two levels: the activation of multiple potential lexical meanings and their match with the biased meaning of sentence context. In addition, context position had significant influence on semantic access of the figurative (salient) meaning of Chengyu. To be specific, pre-context position might preset the access to figurative (salient) meaning of Chengyu. It was found that if the context-biased meaning was in accordance with the figurative (salient) meaning, the pre-context might speed up the access of figurative (salient) meaning. If not, it might inhibit the access of figurative meaning, which meant that it would take the agent longer time until the literal meaning was accessed. In addition, post-context was found to function in checking the meaning of Chengyu reversely and then rectifying the under-identifying meaning in two ways: (1) If the first accessed figurative meaning was suitable to the post-context, then the access process was accelerated and the literal meaning was suspended meanwhile; (2) If not, the post-context prohibited it and the process did not finish until its literal meaning was accessed. Such conclusion is in accordance with the dynamic self-organization model.
Original language | Chinese (Simplified) |
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Pages (from-to) | 22-27 |
Number of pages | 6 |
Journal | Journal of Psychological Science |
Volume | 42 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2019 |
Keywords
- Chinese language
- idioms
- semantics
- context effects (psychology)