Cover not available
Article published In:
Empirical Studies of Literariness
Edited by Massimo Salgaro and Paul Sopčák
[Scientific Study of Literature 8:1] 2018
► pp. 135–164

Eye movements reveal readers’ sensitivity to deliberate metaphors during narrative reading

| Radboud University Nijmegen
| Radboud University Nijmegen
| Radboud University Nijmegen
Metaphors occur frequently in literary texts. Deliberate Metaphor Theory (DMT; e.g., Steen, 2017) proposes that metaphors that serve a communicative function as metaphor are radically different from metaphors that do not have this function. We investigated differences in processing between deliberate and non-deliberate metaphors, compared to non-metaphorical words in literary reading. Using the Deliberate Metaphor Identification Procedure (Reijnierse et al., 2018), we identified metaphors in two literary stories. Then, eye-tracking was used to investigate participants’ (N = 72) reading behavior. Deliberate metaphors were read slower than non-deliberate metaphors, and both metaphor types were read slower than non-metaphorical words. Differences were controlled for several psycholinguistic variables. Differences in reading behavior were related to individual differences in reading experience and absorption and appreciation of the story. These results are in line with predictions from DMT and underline the importance of distinguishing between metaphor types in the experimental study of literary reading.
Keywords: deliberate metaphor, eye-movements, literature, metaphor processing, literary reading
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Three dimensions of metaphor (in fiction)
  • The identification of potentially deliberate metaphors in language use
  • (Deliberate) metaphor processing
  • Method and materials
    • Participants
    • Materials
    • Questionnaires
      • Absorption
      • Appreciation
      • Reading experience
    • Metaphor identification procedure
      • Reliability of coding
    • Experimental procedure
    • Apparatus
    • Stimulus presentation
    • Experimental design and statistical analysis
  • Results
  • Discussion
  • Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 17 January 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ssol.18008.vri
References (76)
References
Acheson, D. J., Wells, J. B., & MacDonald, M. C. (2008). New and updated tests of print exposure and reading abilities in college students. Behavior Research Methods, 40(1), 278–289. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Aristotle (1940). The art of poetry (I. Bywater, Trans.). Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Arzouan, Y., Goldstein, A., & Faust, M. (2007). Brainwaves are stethoscopes: ERP correlates of novel metaphor comprehension. Brain research, 11601, 69–81. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bambini, V., Canal, P., Resta, D., & Grimaldi, M. (2018). Time course and neurophysiological underpinnings of metaphor in literary context. Discourse Processes. Advance online publication. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bates, D., Maechler, M., Bolker, B., & Walker, S. (2014). Lme4: Linear mixed-effects models using Eigen and S4. R package version, 1(7).Google Scholar
Blank, G. (1988). Metaphors in the lexicon. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity, 3(3), 21–36. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Block, C. K., & Baldwin, C. L. (2010). Cloze probability and completion norms for 498 sentences: Behavioral and neural validation using event-related potentials. Behavior Research Methods, 42(3), 665–670. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bowdle, B. F., & Gentner, D. (2005). The career of metaphor. Psychological Review, 112(1), 193–216. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cameron, L. (1999). Operationalising ‘metaphor’ for applied linguistic research. In L. Cameron & G. Low (Eds.), Researching and applying metaphor (pp. 3–28). Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2003). Metaphor in Educational Discourse. London, United Kingdom: Continuum.Google Scholar
Cardillo, E. R., Watson, C. E., Schmidt, G. L., Kranjec, A., & Chatterjee, A. (2012). From novel to familiar: Tuning the brain for metaphors. Neuroimage, 59(4), 3212–3221. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Carpenter, P., & Just, M. A. (1983). What your eyes do while your mind is reading. In K. Rayner (Ed.), Eye movements in reading: Perceptual and language processes (pp. 275–307). New York, NY: Academic Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Charteris-Black, J. (2005). Politicians & Rhetoric. Basingstoke, United Kingdom: Palgrave-Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chateau, D., & Jared, D. (2000). Exposure to print and word recognition processes. Memory & Cognition, 28(1), 143–153. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Columbus, G., Sheikh, N. A., Côté-Lecaldare, M., Häuser, K., Baum, S. R., & Titone, D. (2015). Individual differences in executive control relate to metaphor processing: An eye movement study of sentence reading. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8, 1057. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Coulson, S., & Van Petten, C. (2002). Conceptual integration and metaphor: An event-related potential study. Memory & Cognition, 30(6), 958–968. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dorst, A. G. (2015). More or different metaphors in fiction? A quantitative cross-register comparison. Language and Literature, 24(1), 3–22. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Forgács, B., Bohrn, I., Baudewig, J., Hofmann, M. J., Pléh, C., & Jacobs, A. M. (2012). Neural correlates of combinatorial semantic processing of literal and figurative noun noun compound words. NeuroImage, 63(3), 1432–1442. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gibbs, R. W. (2015a). Do pragmatic signals affect conventional metaphor understanding? A failed test of deliberate metaphor theory. Journal of Pragmatics, 901, 77–87. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2015b). Does deliberate metaphor theory have a future? Journal of Pragmatics, 901, 73–76. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goatly, A. (1997). The language of metaphors. London, United Kingdom: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goodkind, A., & Bicknell, K. (2018). Predictive power of word surprisal for reading times is a linear function of language model quality. In Proceedings of the 8th Workshop on Cognitive Modeling and Computational Linguistics (CMCL 2018) (pp. 10–18). DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Green, M. C., Brock, T. C., & Kaufman, G. F. (2004). Understanding media enjoyment: The role of transportation into narrative worlds. Communication Theory, 14(4), 311–327. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hakemulder, J. (2004). Foregrounding and its effect on readers’ perception. Discourse Processes, 38(2), 193–218. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hale, J. (2001). A probabilistic Earley parser as a psycholinguistic model. In Proceedings of the second meeting of the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics on Language technologies (pp. 1–8). Association for Computational Linguistics. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jacobs, A. M. (2015a). Neurocognitive poetics: Methods and models for investigating the neuronal and cognitive-affective bases of literature reception. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 9, 186. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2015b). Towards a neurocognitive poetics model of literary reading. In R. M. Willems (Ed.), Cognitive Neuroscience of Natural Language Use (pp. 135–195). Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jacobs, A. M., & Kinder, A. (2018). What makes a metaphor literary? Answers from two computational studies. Metaphor and Symbol, 33(2), 85–100. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jacobs, A. M., & Willems, R. M. (2017). The fictive brain: Neurocognitive correlates of engagement in literature. Review of General Psychology, Advance online publication. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Keuleers, E., Brysbaert, M., & New, B. (2010). SUBTLEX-NL: A new measure for Dutch word frequency based on film subtitles. Behavior Research Methods, 42(3), 643–650. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Koller, V. (2003). Metaphor clusters in business media discourse: A social cognition approach. Diss. Vienna University. [URL]
Koopman, E. M. (2010). Reading the suffering of others: The ethical possibilities of ‘empathic unsettlement’. Journal of Literary Theory, 4(2), 235–251. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Knoop, C. A., Wagner, V., Jacobsen, T., & Menninghaus, W. (2016). Mapping the aesthetic space of literature “from below”. Poetics, 561, 35–49. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Krennmayr, T., Bowdle, B. F., Mulder, G., & Steen, G. J. (2014). Economic competition is like auto racing. Building metaphorical schemas when reading text. Metaphor and the Social World, 4(1), 65–89. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kuijpers, M. M., Hakemulder, F., Tan, E. S., & Doicaru, M. M. (2014). Exploring absorbing reading experiences. Scientific Study of Literature, 4(1), 89–122. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kuperman, V., Dambacher, M., Nuthmann, A., & Kliegl, R. (2010). The effect of word position on eye-movements in sentence and paragraph reading, The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 63(9), 1838–1857. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lai, V. T., Curran, T., & Menn, L. (2009). Comprehending conventional and novel metaphors: An ERP study. Brain Research, 12841, 145–155. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lakoff, G. (1993). The contemporary theory of metaphor. In A. Ortony (Ed.), Metaphor and Thought (2nd ed.) (pp. 202–251). Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2014). Mapping the brain’s metaphor circuitry: Metaphorical thought in everyday reason. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8, 958. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lakoff, G., Espenson, J., & Schwartz, A. (1991). Master Metaphor List. Technical report, University of California, Berkely. Retrieved from: [URL]
Lakoff, J. & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Landis, J. R., & Koch, G. G. (1977). The measurement of observer agreement for categorical data. Biometrics, 33(1), 159–174. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Leech, G. N. (1966). English in Advertising: A Linguistic Study of Advertising in Great Britain. London, United Kingdom: Longman.Google Scholar
(2008). Language in literature: style and foregrounding. Harlow, United Kingdom: Pearson.Google Scholar
Luke, S. G., & Henderson, J. M. (2016). The influence of content meaningfulness on eye movements across tasks: Evidence from scene viewing and reading. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 257. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mak, H. M. & Willems, R. M. (in press). Mental Simulation during Literary Reading: Individual Differences Revealed with Eye-Tracking. Language, Cognition, and Neuroscience.Google Scholar
Miall, D., & Kuiken, D. (1994). Foregrounding, defamiliarization and affect. Response to literary stories. Poetics, 221, 389–407. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mukařovský, J. (1932/1964). Standard language and poetic language. In: P. L. Garvin (Ed.), A Prague School reader on esthetics, literary structure, and style (pp. 17–30). Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Nabokov, V. (1996). Verzamelde verhalen 1. Amsterdam, Netherlands: De Bezige Bij.Google Scholar
Olkoniemi, H., Ranta, H., & Kaakinen, J. K. (2016). Individual differences in the processing of written sarcasm and metaphor: Evidence from eye movements. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 42(3), 433–450. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ortony, A. (Ed.). (1979). Metaphor and Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pasma, T. (2011). Metaphor and register variation. The personalisation of Dutch news discourse. Oisterwijk, Netherlands: Box Press.Google Scholar
Rataj, K. (2014). Surfing the brainwaves of metaphor comprehension. Poznan Studies in Contemporary Linguistics, 50(1), 55–73. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rayner, K. (1998). Eye movements in reading and information processing: 20 years of research. Psychological Bulletin, 124(3), 372–422. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rayner, K., & Duffy, S. A. (1986). Lexical complexity and fixation times in reading: Effects of word frequency, verb complexity, and lexical ambiguity. Memory & Cognition, 14(3), 191–201. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rayner, K., Sereno, S. C., Morris, R. K., Schmauder, A. R., & Clifton Jr, C. (1989). Eye movements and on-line language comprehension processes. Language and Cognitive Processes, 4(3), SI21–SI49. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Reijnierse, W. G., Burgers, C., Krennmayr, T., & Steen, G. J. (submitted). The role of co-text in the analysis of potentially deliberate metaphor.
(in press). Metaphor in communication: The distribution of potentially deliberate metaphor across register and word class. To appear in Corpora 14(3). DOI logo
(2018). DMIP: A method for identifying potentially deliberate metaphor in language use. Corpus Pragmatics, 21, 129–147. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Semino, E. (2008). Metaphor in discourse. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Semino, E. & Steen, G. J. (2008). Metaphor in literature. In Gibbs Jr, R. W. (Ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Metaphor and Thought (pp. 232–246). Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stanovich, K. E., & West, R. F. (1989). Exposure to print and orthographic processing. Reading Research Quarterly, 24(4), 402–433. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stanovich, K. E., West, R. F., & Harrison, M. R. (1995). Knowledge growth and maintenance across the life span: The role of print exposure. Developmental Psychology, 31(5), 811. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Steen, G. J. (2008). The paradox of metaphor: Why we need a three-dimensional model of metaphor. Metaphor and Symbol, 23(4), 213–241. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2011). The contemporary theory of metaphor – Now new and improved! Review of Cognitive Linguistics, 9(1), 26–64. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2017). Deliberate Metaphor Theory: Basic assumptions, main tenets, urgent issues. Intercultural Pragmatics, 14(1), 1–24. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Steen, G. J., Dorst, A. G., Herrmann, J. B., Kaal, A. A., Krennmayr, T., & Pasma, T. (2010). A method for linguistic metaphor identification: From MIP to MIPVU. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tay, D. (2013). Metaphor in psychotherapy. A descriptive and prescriptive analysis. Amsterdam, Netherlands: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Taylor, W. L. (1953). “Cloze procedure”: A new tool for measuring readability. Journalism Bulletin, 30(4), 415–433. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Van Dale Hedendaags Nederlands Online. [URL]
van den Bosch, A., Busser, B., Canisius, S., & Daelemans, W. (2007). An efficient memory-based morphosyntactic tagger and parser for Dutch. In P. Dirix, I. Schuurman, V. Vandeghinste, & F. Van Eynde (Eds.), Proceedings of the 17th Meeting of Computational Linguistics in the Netherlands (pp. 99–114).Google Scholar
van den Hoven, E., Hartung, F., Burke, M., & Willems, R. M. (2016). Individual differences in sensitivity to style during literary reading: Insights from eye-tracking. Collabra, 2(1): 251, 1–16. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
van Essen, R. (2014). Hier wonen ook mensen. Amsterdam: Atlas Contact.Google Scholar
van Peer, W. (1986). Stylistics and psychology: Investigations of foregrounding. London, United Kingdom: Croom Helm.Google Scholar
van Peer, W., Hakemulder, J., & Zygnier, S. (2007). Lines on feeling: Foregrounding, aesthetics and meaning. Language and Literature, 16(2), 197–213. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Willems, R. M., & Jacobs, A. M. (2016). Caring about Dostoyevsky: The untapped potential of studying literature. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 20(4), 243–245. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (8)

Cited by eight other publications

Wong, Sum
2024. Deliberate metaphor (use) in translation and interpreting. Metaphor and the Social World DOI logo
Steen, Gerard J.
2023. Thinking by metaphor, fast and slow: Deliberate Metaphor Theory offers a new model for metaphor and its comprehension. Frontiers in Psychology 14 DOI logo
Klomberg, Bien & Neil Cohn
2022. Picture perfect peaks: comprehension of inferential techniques in visual narratives. Language and Cognition 14:4 ► pp. 596 ff. DOI logo
Nishihara, Takayuki
2022. EFL learners’ reading traits for lexically easy short poetry. Cogent Education 9:1 DOI logo
Eekhof, Lynn S., Kobie van Krieken, José Sanders & Roel M. Willems
2021. Reading Minds, Reading Stories: Social-Cognitive Abilities Affect the Linguistic Processing of Narrative Viewpoint. Frontiers in Psychology 12 DOI logo
Mak, Marloes & Roel M. Willems
2021. Eyelit: Eye Movement and Reader Response Data During Literary Reading. Journal of Open Humanities Data 7 DOI logo
Statham, Simon & Rocío Montoro
2019. The year’s work in stylistics 2018. Language and Literature: International Journal of Stylistics 28:4 ► pp. 354 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2023. Slowing Metaphor Down [Converging Evidence in Language and Communication Research, 26], DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 27 september 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.