| Metaphors are pervasive in human language and have been studied since the time of ancient Greece,when Lakoff,in his book The Metaphors We Live By,highlighted the fact that human thought processes are largely metaphorical.Metaphors play a critical role in shaping the human conceptual system,as they allow us to understand one thing in terms of another.Since then,the study of metaphor has evolved into a study that explores human cognitive mechanisms,ways of thinking,and language comprehension.Metaphor language comprehension and processing have gradually received attention from researchers.Research has demonstrated that the ability to understand metaphors is impacted by both inhibitory control(IC)and second language proficiency(SLP),and the metaphor conventionality will affect IC ability.If L2 learners have strong IC ability and are presented with a high level of metaphor conventionality,they can extract explicit information better and comprehend metaphors quickly.Conversely,when metaphors are in low-leveled conventionality,L2 learners may struggle to infer the metaphor’s implication,leading to slower comprehension,which supports the “Graded Salience Hypothesis”.Learners with high SLP perform better in metaphor comprehension tasks and their performance will not be influenced by metaphorical materials.Despite this,some studies have found that individual differences(such as inhibitory control)in metaphor comprehension are not related to SLP.In light of this,researchers then began to investigate whether there is a relation between IC ability and SLP that work together in L2 metaphor comprehension.However,there is a lack of relevant research.Therefore,based on prior studies,the purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of IC ability and SLP on L2 metaphor comprehension.This study raised three questions according to research purposes and designed one experiment to answer each of these three questions.Question 1: How does inhibitory control influence second language learners’ performance in L2 metaphor comprehension?Question 2: How does second language proficiency influence second language learners’ performance in L2 metaphor comprehension?Question 3: What is the interplay between inhibitory control and second language proficiency in L2 metaphor comprehension?To answer these three questions,the experiment adopted 2(IC: Strong or Weak)×2(SLP: High or Low)mixed design,using a language background questionnaire,a Flanker task and a sense-nonsense task to investigate the effects of second language learners’ IC ability and SLP on L2 metaphor comprehension.The experimental participants were undergraduates from a university,who were selected for material-selecting and the experiment.The participants were non-English major freshmen,aged 18-20 years old,and were divided into a high SLP group and a low SLP group based on their CET4 scores in December 2021.The tasks for 67 participants selected for material-selecting included a language background questionnaire,rating the conventionality and familiarity of metaphorical sentences and circling unknown words in the experimental materials.Based on the scoring and screening conducted by the participants selected for the material-selecting,the researcher selected sentences whose metaphor conventionality and familiarity scored above 4.In the experiment,a total of 65 non-English major freshmen completed the test tasks,including the pre-experiment background questionnaire and post-experiment questionnaire,the sense-nonsense task,and the Flanker task.E-prime 3.0 software and SPSS 26 were selected for data analysis.The results that were obtained in the present study are as follows.First,learners’ IC ability only affected the reaction time of L2 metaphor comprehension,but it did not affect the accuracy rate of this cognitive process.Participants with strong IC ability were slower at responding to metaphors compared to those with weak IC ability.Even though the two groups had no significant difference in accuracy rate,the participants with strong IC ability responded to more trials correctly.Second,SLP affected both the reaction time and accuracy rate of L2 metaphor comprehension.Learners with high SLP performed faster in L2 metaphor comprehension and achieved a higher accuracy rate than participants with low SLP.Finally,IC ability and SLP interacted with each other in terms of the reaction time and accuracy rate of L2 metaphor comprehension.In participants with strong IC ability,the reaction time of those with high SLP was longer than that of participants with low SLP.In participants with weak IC ability,the reaction time of participants with high SLP was shorter than that of participants with low SLP.In participants with high SLP,the reaction time of participants with weak IC ability was shorter than those with strong IC ability;in participants with low SLP,the reaction time of participants with weak IC ability was longer than that of those with strong IC ability.Regardless of the participants’ IC ability,the accuracy rate of participants with high SLP in L2 metaphor comprehension was consistently higher than that of participants with low SLP.In summary,the results of the present study indicated that learners’ IC ability had an impact only on the reaction time of L2 metaphor comprehension,but it did not have any effect on the accuracy rates of this cognitive process.Second language proficiency affected L2 metaphor comprehension,and there was an interaction effect between these two factors.Firstly,participants with weak IC performed better than those with strong IC in L2 metaphor comprehension.Secondly,participants with high SLP performed better than those with low SLP.Thirdly,SLP and IC have an interaction effect on L2 metaphor comprehension,and the former plays a more important role in L2 metaphor comprehension than the latter.The results of the study will supplement previous studies,provide data to support related theories such as the Career Metaphor Hypothesis and the Graded Salience Hypothesis,and offer methods for teaching English metaphors. |
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