What Do Idioms Really Mean

JOURNAL

OF MEMORY

AND

LANGUAGE

31,485506

(1992)

What Do idioms Realty Mean? W.

RAYMOND

GIBBS,

JR.

Universify of California, Santa Cruz The “dead” metaphor view of idiomaticity suggests that idioms were once metaphoric but have lost their metaphoricity over time and now are equivalent to simple literal phrases such that blow your stack = “to get very angry,” crack the whip = “to exert authority,” and spill the beans = “to reveal a secret.” The purpose of the present studies was to demonstrate that idioms are not dead metaphors but have more complex meanings that are motivated by conceptual metaphors linking idiom phrases with their figurative interpretations. Six experiments are reported that examine the difference between idioms and their literal paraphrases. A fust study examined people’s intuitions about different knowledge domains to illustrate that the meanings of idioms are consistent with the source-to-target domain mappings of the conceptual metaphors that motivate these phrases’ figurative meanings. The data from Experiments 2 and 3 indicate that people view idioms as having more complex meanings than do their roughly, equivalent literal paraphrases. Experiments 4 through 6 show that idioms are most appropriate to use and easiest to comprehend when they are encountered in discourse situations that are consistent with the entailments of the conceptual metaphors that motivate these phrases’ idiomatic meanings. The findings from these studies suggest that idioms are not dead metaphors with simple figurative interpretations. Instead, idioms have complex meanings that are motivated by independently existing conceptual metaphors that are partly constitutive of everyday thought. D ISZ Academic press, w.

One of the most persistent ideas in both “folk” and linguistic accounts of idioms is that these phrases are “dead” metaphors. It is commonly assumed that idioms were metaphorical in their origins, but have lost their metaphoricity over time and now exist as frozen, semantic units or as “dead” metaphors. Although metaphors are lively, creative, and resistant to literal paraphrase, idioms are dead, hackneyed expressions that are equivalent in meaning to simple literal phrases. To many scholars, classifying an utterance or phrase as “idiomatic” is tantamount to a theoretical explanation in itself, since it assumes that idioms are dead metaphors and really belong to the wastebasket of formulas and phrases that are sepThis research was supported by Grant MH42980 from the National Institute of Mental Health and by a Faculty Research Grant from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Correspondence and reprint requests may be sent to Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr., Program in Experimental Psychology, Clark Kerr Hall, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064.

arate from the generative component of the grammar (Gibbs, 1990, in press). Most idiom dictionaries give simple delinitions for idioms (Boatner, Gates, & Makkai, 1975; Cowie, Mackin, & McCaig, 1983; Long & Summer, 1979). For instance, crack the whip is defined as “to be in control,” spill the beans means “to make known a secret,” go to pieces means to “become distressed,” and blow your stack means to “become very angry.” Of course, dictionary definitions do not necessarily reflect the complexity in people’s mental representations for words and phrases. Yet many semantic theories assume that the meanings of idioms are best represented by simple definitions because idioms are mostly dead metaphors (Cruse, 1986; Palmer, 1981). My contention, contrary to the dead metaphor view, is that idioms have complex figurative interpretations that are not arbitrarily determined but are motivated by independently existing conceptual metaphors that provide the founda-

485 0749-596X/92 $5.00 Copyright Q 1992 by Academic Press, Inc. AU tights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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GIBBS,

JR.

tion for much of our everyday thought and people process idioms more quickly than reasoning. they do corresponding literal phrases There has recently been a great deal of (Gibbs, 1980, 1986; Gibbs & Gonzales, research in cognitive linguistics and psy- 1985; Gibbs, Nayak, & Cutting, 1989; Orcholinguistics that questions the dead met- tony, Schallert, Reynolds, & Antos, 1978; aphor view of idiomaticity (Fillmore, Kay, Swinney & Cutler, 1979). However, no & O’Conner, 1988; Gibbs, 1990; Gibbs & work has specifically examined how and Nayak, 1991, 1989; Gibbs & O’Brien, 1990; why idioms actually differ in meaning from Lakoff, 1987; Langacker, 1987; Nayak & their literal paraphrases. Gibbs, 1990). This work generally suggests Consider the phrases blow your stack, that many idioms are not simple, “dead” jlip your lid, and hit the ceiling. Why would metaphors, but actually retain a good deal speakers use these expressions to mean “to of their metaphoricity. For example, the get very angry?” My hypothesis is that figurative meanings of blow your stack and these idioms are not equivalent to a simple, flip your lid are specifically motivated by literal paraphrase such as “to get very antwo independently existing conceptual gry” because they have complex semantic mappings in long-term memory-MIND IS configurations that are motivated by two A CONTAINER and ANGER IS conceptual metaphors-MIND IS A CONHEATED FLUID IN A CONTAINER. TAINER and ANGER IS HEATED These conceptual metaphors allow speak- FLUID IN A CONTAINER. The MIND IS ers to refer to ideas about “getting angry” A CONTAINER metaphor is part of the through particular instantiations of the more general CONDUIT metaphor (Reddy, mapping from a source domain (e.g., 1979), and the ANGER IS HEAT metaphor heated fluid) onto a target domain (e.g., comes from the common folk theory that “anger”). Speakers “make sense” of idi- the physiological effects of anger are inoms, such as blow your stack and flip your creased body heat, increased internal preslid, precisely because their meanings can be sure, and agitation (Kovecses, 1986; Lamotivated by the conceptual mappings that koff, 1987). Thus, people’s metaphorical link the individual words in idioms to their mapping of knowledge from a source domain (e.g., heated fluid in a container) onto figurative meanings. Various experimental studies have inves- a target domain (e.g., the anger emotion) helps them conceptualize in more concrete tigated the psycholinguistic consequences terms what is understood about the target of this conceptual view of idiomaticity. mapping preSome research showed that people’s tacit domain. This metaphorical serves the structural characteristics or the knowledge of different conceptual metacognitive topology of the source domain phors (e.g., the MIND IS A CONTAINER, (Lakoff, 1990). For example, our underANGER IS HEATED FLUID IN A CONTAINER) constrain their mental images for standing that too much heated fluid can idiomatic phrases (Gibbs & O’Brien, 1990). cause a sealed container to explode is mapped onto the target domain of anger Other studies demonstrated that people’s such that we conceptualize the “explometaphorical understanding of emotion concepts, such as anger, joy, sadness, and sion” of someone’s anger as being perand with great infear, facilitates the context-sensitive use formed unintentionally tensity. Various specific entailments result and understanding of idioms in discourse (Nayak & Gibbs, 1990). My aim in the from these general metaphorical mappings, that provide specific insight present studies was to show that idioms are entailments into the causes, intentionality, manner, and not equivalent in meaning to their literal paraphrases. Numerous studies report that consequences of the activities described by

IDIOMATIC

stacks blowing, lids flipping, and ceilings being hit. The metaphorical ways in which we partially conceptualize experiences, such as anger, provide part of the motivation for why linguistic expressions such as hit the ceiling, jlip your lid, or blow your stack make sense in having the figurative meanings they do (Gibbs, 1990; Gibbs & Nayak, 1991). On the other hand, literal paraphrases of these idioms such as “to get very angry” do not convey the same inferences about the causes, intentionality, and manner in which someone experiences and expresses his or her anger. Most literal paraphrases of idioms are not motivated by the same set of rich conceptual metaphors as are idioms (Gibbs & O’Brien, 1990). This difference between idioms and their literal paraphrases is not simply due to the fact that idioms are a type of figurative language and thus more likely to be motivated by conceptual metaphors than are literal expressions. Indeed, many literal expressions make sense to us precisely because they too are motivated by conceptual metaphors. For example, the expressions: He attacked every weak point in my argument; Z demolished his argument; and His criticisms were right on target appear to most

speakers as being fairly literal. Yet each expression is motivated by the same conceptual metaphor whereby arguments are understood in terms of wars. My claim that literal paraphrases of idioms are not cleady motivated by conceptual metaphor is therefore not a comment on literal language per se. Rather, my hypothesis is that simple literal paraphrases of idioms, such as “to get very angry” or “to reveal the secret” are not by themselves motivated by single conceptual metaphors and therefore do not possess the kind of complex interpretations as do idiomatic phrases. The present experiments aimed to discover whether people viewed idioms as having different meanings from their literal paraphrases. These studies are significant not only for psycholin-

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guistic theories of figurative language use, but also because they provide additional evidence on the metaphorical foundation of everyday thought. EXPERIMENT

1

The first study attempted to provide data showing how the figurative meanings of idioms are motivated by conceptual metaphor. The previous work on mental imagery for idioms indicated that people have very similar intuitions about the actions that are described by idiomatic expressions (Gibbs & O’Brien, 1990). Consider anger idioms such as blow your stack, flip your lid, and hit the ceiling. Participants in the earlier studies strongly agreed about the causes, intentionality, and manner in which stacks are blown, lids are flipped, and ceilings hit when they form mental images for these anger idioms. This consistency in people’s intuitions about their mental images for idioms was attributed to the constraining presence of specific conceptual metaphors that motivated the figurative meanings of these idioms. For the anger idioms studied, the conceptual metaphor ANGER IS HEATED FLUID IN A CONTAINER provides part of the link between an idiom and its figurative meaning and also constrains the inferences people make about what these idioms mean. The present experiment extended these earlier studies to show that people’s understanding of idiomatic meaning reflects the particular entailments of their underlying conceptual metaphors. Each conceptual metaphor maps knowledge from a specific source domain (e.g., HEATED FLUID IN A CONTAINER) onto a dissimilar target domain (e.g., ANGER). My hypothesis was that the metaphorical mappings that motivate idiomatic meanings preserves the structural characteristics of the source domain. For example, people’s understanding of the causes, intentionality, and manner of physical events, such as heating fluid in containers (i.e., source domains), should be

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similar to their understandings of the causes, intentionality, and manner of the anger to which idioms such as blow your stack, jlip your lid, and hit the ceiling refer. The purpose of Experiment 1 was to simply assess people’s understanding of the causes, intentionality, and manner of the actions in different source domains (e.g., heated fluid in a container, the behavior of brittle objects in containers, and so on). These events corresponded to particular source domains in various conceptual metaphors (e.g., ANGER IS HEATED FLUID IN A CONTAINER, IDEAS ARE PHYSICAL ENTITIES IN CONTAINERS, THE MIND IS A BRITTLE OBJECT, CONTROL IS POSSESSION OF SOME OBJECT) that have been seen in previous research as motivating the figurative meanings of idioms such as blow your stack, spill the beans, lose your grip, and lay down the law (Gibbs & O’Brien, 1990). Participants read brief scenarios describing specific source domains. These scenarios make no reference to anything about idioms or to the target domains to which idioms refer (e.g., anger, the revelation of secrets, going insane, etc). After reading each scenario, for example, about fluid inside a sealed container, the participants answered specific questions regarding the cause, intentionality, and manner of various possible events, such as what might cause the fluid to escape from a sealed container. If idioms are partially motivated by conceptual metaphors, then people’s intuitions about the causation, intentionality, and manner of action for these metaphors’ source domains should be very similar to what people generally perceive as being the figurative meanings of these idioms. The results of this study, therefore, provide the basis for making specific predictions about what idioms mean, based on an independent assessment of people’s intuitions about the individual source domains in the conceptual metaphors that motivate the figurative meanings of idioms.

GIBBS,

JR.

Methods Subjects. Thirty-eight undergraduate students from the University of California, Santa Cruz served as participants in this study. They received course credit for their service. All the participants were native English speakers. Stimuli and design. Four different conceptual metaphors that motivated the figurative meanings of idioms referring to anger, insanity, exerting control, and revelation were employed as the primary stimuli. These conceptual metaphors were previously analyzed as motivating the meanings of different idioms in Gibbs and O’Brien (19!30) and included ANGER IS HEATED FLUID IN A CONTAINER (for anger), the MIND IS A BRITTLE OBJECT (for insanity), CONTROL IS A POSSESSION (for exerting control), and IDEAS ARE ENTITIES IN A CONTAINER (for revelation). A short scenario was written to depict the basic elements in each of the four source domains. For example, the scenario for the source domain of heated fluid in a container stated “Imagine that you are looking at a container that is shaped like a cylinder. The top of the container is sealed. The container is completely filled with some sort of fluid.” Following each scenario were three questions that queried participants about various events relevant to these source domains. One question assessed people’s intuitions about the causation of some event (e.g., “Describe something that would cause the fluid to come spontaneously out of the container”). A second question assessed people’s intuitions about the intentional@ of that event (e.g., “Imagine that something caused the fluid to come out of the container. Do you think that the fluid comes out on purpose or does the fluid just somehow get out by accident?“). A final question assessed people’s intuitions about the manner in which the event is performed (e.g., “Imagine

IDIOMATIC

again that the fluid comes out of the sealed container. Do you think the fluid comes out in a gentle manner or does it explode out?“). Table 1 presents the scenarios and the three action questions for each of the four source domains. Procedure. Each participant was presented with a test booklet that contained the experimental instructions along with all the stimuli materials. The participants were told that the purpose of the study was to examine their intuitions about simple objects and events in the real world. The participants read the first scenario and then answered the three questions that followed.

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This was then done for the second, third, and, finally, fourth source domains. Neither the experiment instructions or the experimenter said anything about this study relating to linguistics or, more specifically, to the meanings of idioms. The experiment took approximately 15 min to complete. Results and Discussion

The participants’ responses to each question were analyzed in the following manner. First, each person’s response to each question was analyzed for its general characteristics. For example, when a participant reported that his or her response to the cau-

TABLE 1 SCENARIOS AND ACTION QUESTIONS USED IN EXPERIMENT 1 Source domain Fluid in c1container-Imagine that you are looking at a container that is shaped like a cylinder. The top of the container is sealed. The container is completely filled with some sort of fluid. Describe something that would make the fluid explode out of the sealed container. (Causation) Imagine that the fluid is heated to a high temperature and that the fluid comes out of the container. Do you think that the fluid comes out on purpose (that is intentionally) due to its own will or does the fluid just somehow get out unintentionally or by accident? (Intentional&y) Imagine again that once heated to a very high temperature that the fluid came out of the sealed container. Do you think that the fluid comes out of the sealed container in a gentle manner or does it explode out? (Manner) Fragile object in contniner-Imagine that you have a container and inside of it is a very brittle, fragile object. Describe how the fragile objects inside the container might break or fall apart. (Causation) Imagine now that something happens to the container and that this causes the fragile object inside to break. Do you think the object falls apart intentionally through its own will or does it fall apart by accident? (Intentional&y) Imagine again that something happens to the container and that the fragile object breaks or falls apart. Do you think the object falls apart gracefully and slowly or does it fall apart all at once? (Manner)

Small objects in container-Imagine that you are looking at another container. The container is full of many small pieces of something. Describe something that would make the small pieces of material come out of the container. (Causation) If the small pieces did somehow get out of container, do you think this would happen on purpose through the will of the pieces or would this happen accidentally? (Intentional&y) Imagine again that something happens to the container and that the small pieces of the material get out of the container. Do these pieces get out slowly or do they somehow get out of the container quite quickly, perhaps all at once? (Manner) Taking control of some object-Consider the situation where you take some action in order to take some object or event under your control. What makes you exert control on the object or situation? (Causation) Is the action you do to take something under your control done on purpose through your own desire or does it just occur by accident? (Intentional&y) Is the action you do to take something under, your control done gently and slowly or is it performed with some authority and force? (Manner)

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sation question for the fluid in a container scenario was “if you heat the fluid to a high temperature it might explode out,” this was scored as referring to heat or internal pressure as the main cause of the fluid escaping. Two independent judges examined the response protocols and initially reached 96% agreement as to how the individual participants’ responses to questions should be scored. Subsequent discussion among the judges produced complete agreement. In the second stage of the analysis, the different general characteristics for people’s responses to each question across participants were tallied. From this, the single most frequent answer to each question for each source domain was determined. Table 2 presents the proportion of total responses across all the participants that conformed to the most frequently noted response for each question in each source domain. The responses listed in Table 2 generally show that people were quite consistent in their intuitions regarding the causation, intentionality, and manner of events for the four different source domains studied. On average 89% of the participants’ responses were in agreement collapsed across the three types of questions and the four source

domains. This result reflects, for example, the finding that people commonly agree that the probable cause of fluid escaping out of a sealed container is some internal pressure caused by the increase in the heat of the fluid inside the container; that this explosion is unintentional because containers and fluid have no intentional agency; and that the explosion occurs in a violent manner. An analysis of these intersubjects proportions indicated no significant variability across the different questions. The participants were in higher agreement in their responses to the questions for the fragile objects in a container domain than to the small objects domain, z = 2.05, p < .05. All other pairwise comparisons between the source domains were not significant. More importantly, though, the degree of conformity in the participants’ responses to each question in each of the four source domains were significantly greater than chance, z’s = 4.57,4.57,4.19, p’s < .Ol for the causation, intentionality, and manner questions, respectively, in the heated fluid domain, z’s = 5.80, 5.56, 5.80 with p’s < .Ol for the fragile object domain, z’s = 5.18, 3.33, 2.84, p’s < .05 for the small object in con-

TABLE PROPORTION

Source domain

2

OF AGREEMENT

IN EXPERIMENT

1

Most frequent response

Fiuid in coniainer Causation Intentionality Manner

Fluid is heated and/or under pressure Escape of fluid is unintentional Action is performed violently and abruptly

37 .81 .84

Fragile object in container Causation Intentionality Manner

Some severe internal stress is applied Breaking of object is unintentional Action is performed forcefully and quickly

.97 .95 .97

Small objects in container Causation Intentionality Manner

Pressure or stress is applied Escape of objects is unintentional Action is performed forcefully

.92 .71 .73

Taking control of some object Causation Intentionality Manner

Desire to control object Action is done intentionally Action is performed with force

1.00 .97 34

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tamer domain, and z’s = 6.17, 5.80, 4.19, p’s < .Ol for the taking control of some object domain. Chance was conservatively defined in these tests as SO, a proportion that assumes participants could only give two possible responses even though the answers to some questions could be potentially unlimited. The important findings in this experiment concern the similarity in people’s intuitions about these source domains with other people’s understanding of the causation, intentionality, and manner of the actions in their mental images for idioms (Gibbs & O’Brien, 1990). For instance, the Gibbs and O’Brien studies showed that when people imagined the phrases blow your stack and j7ip your lid they consistently viewed the cause of the stacks blowing and lids flipping as being due to some internal pressure, that these actions were unintentional and performed in a forceful manner. As shown in Experiment 1, people have similar intuitions about the objects and events in the source domain of fluid in a sealed container. The responses for the other source domains were also identical to that found by Gibbs and O’Brien in their participants imagery protocols for revelation, control, and insanity idioms (e.g., spill the beans, crack

the whip,

lose your grip).

Most generally, then, the present findings clearly show how the metaphorical mappings between source and target domains, which motivate the figurative meanings of idioms, preserve the critical, structural characteristics or cognitive topology of the source domains. The question now is whether people understand idioms as having complex meanings based on these entailments of their motivating conceptual metaphors. EXPERIMENT

2

When people read an idiomatic sentence such as John blew his stack when he heard about Mary’s affair do they have any intuitions about the causes, intentionality, and manner in which John experienced his an-

ger? The conceptual view of idiomaticity proposes that readers assume in this case that John got angry because of some internal pressure, that he experienced his anger unintentionally, and that he expressed his anger in an abrupt and explosive manner. The data from Experiment 1 suggest that each of these specific inferences about John’s anger result from our understanding of blow your stack as being motivated by the source-to-target domain mappings in the conceptual metaphors the MIND IS A CONTAINER and ANGER IS HEATED FLUID IN A CONTAINER. But do readers draw these same inferences about John’s anger when they read a literal paraphrase of the blow your stack idiom such as when they see the phrase John got very angry when

he heard

about Mary’s

affair?

This literal phrase is not motivated by conceptual metaphor in the way blow your stack seems to be. It is less likely that readers would draw the same kind of inferences when they read literal phrases such as John got very angry than when they read idiomatic expressions such as John blew his stack.

The aim of Experiment 2 was to test these predictions. Participants read stories that ended in either an idiomatic phrase or some literal equivalent expression. These stories were written in a neutral fashion so as to not give any contextual information about the causes, intentionality , or manner of the main action alluded to by the idiom or its literal paraphrase. Following each story, participants rated their agreement with three assertions regarding the story protagonist’s actions. These assertions stated some possibility about the causation of the action (e.g., “John got angry because he felt some internal pressure”), the intentionality of the action (e.g., “John unintentionally expressed his anger”), and the manner in which the story action was performed (e.g., “John expressed his anger in an abrupt, forceful manner”). The participants’ task was to read each assertion and rate how much they agreed with it given

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what they had just read. The main prediction was that the participants would give higher ratings when they read idiomatic phrases than when they read literal paraphrases because idioms have more complex and exact meanings that specify information about the causation, intentionality, and manner in which certain actions are performed. Method

Subjects. Forty-six undergraduate students from the same population used in Experiment 1 participated in this study. Stimuli and design. Sixteen idioms were selected from the stimuli used by Gibbs and O’Brien (1990). Four of these phrases referred to the idea of revelation (with a literal paraphrase of “to reveal the secret”), four to anger (“to get very angry”), four to insanity (“to go insane”), and four to imposing control or authority (“to exert control”). The various literal paraphrases had been previously rated as being the best possible, simple, definitions of these idioms (Gibbs & Nayak, 1989; Gibbs & O’Brien, 1990). Each of the four human events referred to by these phrases could be described by different conceptual metaphors that gave rise to very specific entailments about the meanings of the idioms. Table 3 presents a list of the idioms and their literal paraphrases. The idioms and their literal paraphrases were placed at the end of short story contexts. These stories, ranging from three to five sentences, were written in a neutral manner and did not specify any information about the causes, intentionality, and manner of the main story actions. Three assertions were written to follow each story context. Each assertion explicitly stated one of the entailments (causation, intentionality, and manner) from those suggested by Experiment 1 (see Table 2) and by the Gibbs and O’Brien (1990) findings. For example, in stories regarding anger, the assertion states something about causation (e.g.,

W. GIBBS, JR. TABLE 3 FINAL PHRASES USED IN EXPERIMENT 2 Anger

idioms

Blow your stack Hit the ceiling Flip your lid Lose your cool To get very angry-literal Exerting

control

paraphrase

idioms

Crack the whip Lay down the law Call the shots Wear the pants To exert control-literal insanity

paraphrase

idioms

Lose your marbles Go to pieces Bounce off the walls Lose your grip To go insane-literal Revelation

paraphrase

idioms

Spili the beans Let the cat out of the bag Blow the whistle Blow the lid off To reveal the secret--literal

paraphrase

“Rick got very angry because he was under a great deal of pressure”), intentionality (e.g., “Rick got very angry without intending to do so”), and manner (e.g., “Rick got angry in a very forceful manner”). Table 4 presents examples of the scenarios and the three assertions for each of the four kinds of human events. The stimuli were divided into four counterbalanced lists of materials. Each list contained eight stories, four ending with idiomatic phrases and four ending with literal paraphrases. Across the four lists of materials, equal numbers of participants saw each scenario with its two different final phrases. Procedure. The participants received a booklet that contained the experimental instructions and all stimulus materials. The instructions asked people to read each story and then to rate their agreement with

IDIOMATIC TABLE EXAMPLES

OF SCENARIOS

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AND QUESTIONS

FOR EXPERIMENT

2

Revelation scenario John heard that Bill and Jane were having an affair. Both Bill and Jane were married to other people. John was surprised when he found out about the affair. When be went home that night, he saw his wife and spilled the beans. or reveal the secret. (a) John told his wife because he felt some pressure within himself to do so. (b) John intentionally told his wife about the affair. (c) John told his wife very quickly and forcefully. Anger scenario Sally was preparing for a big dinner party. She had to do a great deal of cooking. Her husband was supposed to help, but he was real late getting home from work. When her husband strolled in 10 minutes before the party whistling and smiling, Sally blew her stack. or Sally got very angry. (a) Sally got very angry because she was under a great deal of pressure. (b) Sally got very angry without intending to do so. (c) Sally got very angry in a forceful manner. Insanity scenario Jane was a working mother with three children. She was also a lawyer whose husband worked in business. After many years of being successful at both home and at work, Jane began losing her grip. or Jane started going insane. (a) Jane started going crazy because she was under a great deal of pressure. (b) Jane started going crazy without intending to do so. (c) Jane started going crazy all at once in a forceful manner. Exerting control scenario During the summer Steve worked as a lifeguard at a pool. His job had a good deal of responsibility. Steve had to look after the safety of all of the children using the pool. One afternoon some young teenage boys were making trouble. They were jumping on the shoulders of unsuspecting swimmers. Steve went over to the boys and cracked the whip. or exerted his authority. (a) Steve did what he did to take control and impose his authority, (b) Steve did what he did intentionally. (c) Steve did what he did in a forceful manner.

each of the three statements presented below each story. Participants were told to give their agreement ratings using a 7-point scale with 7 indicating that they strongly agreed with the assertion and 1 indicating that they strongly disagreed with the statement. The participants were encouraged to use all parts of the 7-point scale in making

their ratings. The task took participants about 20 min to complete. Results and Discussion Table 5 presents the mean agreement ratings for each experimental condition. The overall standard deviation for these ratings

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TABLE 5 RATINGS IN EXPERIMENT Final

Question Causation Intentional&y Manner

type

Idioms 4.93 4.49 4.22

W.

GIBBS,

JR.

aphors that provide part of the link between idioms and their figurative meanings.

2

phrase

EXPERIMENT

Literal paraphrase 4.33 3.77 3.60

was 4.74. Higher ratings indicate more agreement with the idea stated by each assertion. Analyses of variance on these ratings were conducted both when subjects were the random factor (F,) and when items were the random variable (F,). These analyses indicated that the participants gave higher ratings overall having read the idiom phrases than when they read the literal paraphrases, F,(1,45) = 32.51, p < .OOl, F,(1,15) = 12.32,~ < .OOl. There were also significant differences in the ratings participants gave to the different questions, F,(2,90) = 9.87,~ < .OOl, F,(2,30) = 5.33, p < .Ol. The interaction between these two variables did not approach significance in either the subject or item analyses. Further analysis of the individual means using Newman-Keuls tests showed that the participants were in greater agreement with each type of assertion when they read idioms than when they read literal phrases (p < .05 for each comparison across both subjects and items). These findings show that idioms have more specific, complex meanings than do their assumed literal paraphrases. Readers infer more specific entailments about the causes, intentionality, and manner of human actions when they read idiomatic phrases than when they read literal paraphrases of these figurative expressions. As suggested by Gibbs and O’Brien (1990) and the data from Experiment 1, the specific inferences readers draw when they read idioms are motivated by the conceptual met-

3

The differences in meanings between idioms and their literal paraphrases noted in Experiment 2 might not have anything to do with conceptual metaphors, but might simply be due to the meanings of the different words in these expressions (cf. Kreuz & Graesser, 1991). For instance, people might draw specific inferences about the causation, intentionality, and manner of revealing secrets when they read spill the beans because of the complex semantic entailments of the verb spill and not because spill the beans is motivated by the conceptual metaphors the MIND IS A CONTAINER and IDEAS ARE PHYSICAL ENTITIES. At the same time, people might not draw the same complex inferences about the meaning of the literal phrase reveal the secret because the verb reveal does not entail anything about the causes, intentionality, and manner of action in which things are revealed. This alternative hypothesis for the findings in Experiment 2 has some appeal because, after all, many ordinary verbs such as borrow, float, hurry, and discover have varying, complex semantic entailments, though this does not necessarily imply that they are structured by underlying metaphors. Experiment 3 investigated the possibility that the specific inferences people draw about the meanings of idioms is due to the entailments of these phrases’ individual words, particularly the verbs in each idiom. Participants were presented with the verbs in ail the idioms and literal phrases used as stimuli in Experiment 2. The participants’ task was to answer questions about the entailments of each verb, specifically the entailments regarding the causation, intentionality, and manner of the action described by each verb. For instance, for causation the participants were asked to respond to the following type of question:

IDIOMATIC

When X spills something, does this necessarily mean that the action was caused by some pressure? For intentionality the question was: When X spills something, does this necessarily mean that the action was done intentionally? For manner, the question was: When X spills something, does this necessarily mean that the action was done in a forceful manner? These questions

referred to the entailments of the conceptual metaphors as demonstrated in Experiments 1 and 2. The participants gave “YesNo” ratings on a 7-point scale to each question both when idiom verbs were included (e.g., spill, blew, lays down) and when literal phrase verbs were mentioned (e.g., reveal, gets, enforces). The alternative hypothesis predicts that people should give higher ratings to these questions for idiom verbs than when they read literal phrase verbs. However, the conceptual view of idiomaticity suggests that the specific entailments for idiomatic phrases arises from their metaphorical foundations and not solely from their specific, isolated lexical items. Consequently, the participants should not give higher ratings to the idiom verbs than to the literal phrases verbs. Methods Subjects. Forty undergraduate students from the same subject population used in the previous studies participated in this experiment . Stimuli and design. The initial verb, sometimes verb particle (e.g., lay down) from each idiom and literal paraphrase used a stimuli in Experiment 2 was inserted into questions regarding the causation, intentionality, and manner of action referred to by the verb. The above discussion gives an example of each type of question (i.e., causation, intentionality, and manner). These questions mentioned the entailments of idioms studied in Experiment 2. Each question type was identical across the different verbs with the exception of the verbs or verb particles themselves. Due to the repe-

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tition of some verbs in the idioms, there were only 13 idiom verbs and four literal paraphrase verbs. Procedure. The participants were presented with a booklet containing the instructions and all stimulus materials. The instructions specifically stated the following: “This experiment examines your understanding of the meanings of different verbs in English. In particular, you will be asked to judge the entailments of different verbs. Entailments are specific meanings that are directly associated with a word or sentence. For example, the sentence John killed Mary entails that “Mary died.” Similarly, I saw a boy entails “I saw a person.” Most generally, a word or sentence X entails Y if the truth of Y follows necessarily from the truth of X. For this reason, the sentence John boiled an egg entails that “John cooked an egg,” But John cooked an egg does not entail that “John boiled an egg” because there are many ways to cook eggs without boiling them. Presented below are a series of statements of the general form “When X verbs something, does this necessarily mean that the action was Y?” Your task is to read each statement and rate on a 7-point scale the degree to which you think the answer is “Yes” or “No.” The rating scales goes from 7 which means that you definitely believe the answer is “Yes” to 1 which means that you definitely believe the answer is “No.” A rating of 3, 4, or 5 suggests that you do not really know whether the answer is “Yes” or “No.” Please feel free to use the entire scale in making your ratings. ” The task took around 10 min to complete. Results

and Discussion

The mean ratings averaged across the participants for the two types of verbs (i.e., idiom and literal) for each type of question are presented in Table 6. The overall standard deviation for these ratings was 4.49. Higher ratings reflect the participants’ agreements with the premises of the differ-

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RATINGS

6

IN EXPERIMENT

3

Final phrase Question type Causation Intentionality Manner

Idioms

Literal paraphrase

2.30 2.50 1.85

2.45 2.38 1.86

ent questions (e.g., that the verb spill entails that the action was done intentionally). Preliminary analyses showed that the effect of the different lists of materials was not significant, nor did it interact with any other variable. Subsequent analyses collapsed across this factor. Analyses of variances on the rating data showed that there were no differences in the overall ratings for the idiom and literal phrase verbs, F,( 1,39) < 1, F2( 1,12) < 1. There were significant differences in the ratings for the three questions, F,(2,78) = 6.87, p < .Ol, F,(2,25) = 4.43, p < .Ol. The interaction of verb type and question type was not reliable, Ft(2,78) = 1.33,~ > .lO, F,(2,25) < 1. Further analysis of the individual means using Newman-Keuls tests indicated that participants gave higher ratings for both the causation and intentionality questions than for the manner questions (p’s < .05 for each comparison across both subjects and items). The ratings for the idiom and literal phrase verbs, however, did not differ for any of the three questions. These data contrast with the findings of Experiment 2 where participants’ ratings were significantly higher for idioms than for literal paraphrases given each type of question. Nevertheless, rating whether specific verbs necessarily mean something, as was done in the present study, is different from asking participants to rate the appropriateness of various entailments for entire idiomatic and literal expressions as was done in Experiment 2. It could be the case that the different verbs in the idioms and literal

W. GIBBS, JR.

phrases do not necessarily have specific meanings, yet these verbs may well suggest different interpretations. To check for this possibility, a different group of 24 undergraduate students from the University of California, Santa Cruz participated in a study to replicate the main findings of the present experiment. The participants in this replication were asked to rate, again on a 7-point scale, whether the different verbs from the idioms and literal phrases suggested the specific inferences about the causation, intentionality, and manner of the action described. The data for this replication study are presented in Table 7. Analyses of variance on these data showed that there were no significant differences in the ratings for the idioms and literal paraphrases, F,(1,23) < 1, F,(1,12) < 1. There were, once again, significant differences in the ratings for the different questions, F,(2,46) = 4.83, p < .Ol, F,(2,25) = 3.19, p < .05. The interaction of verb type and type of question was not significant, F,(2,46) < 1, F,(2,25) < 1. These findings indicate that changing the instructions on how to rate the meanings or implications of verbs does not produce any notable difference in people’s intuitions about the meanings of the individual verbs from idioms and their literal paraphrases studied in Experiment 2. Overall, the results of Experiment 3 do not support the alternative hypothesis that the specific meanings of idioms, as shown by the data in Experiment 2, were due solely to the entailments of the individual verbs in these idioms.

TABLE MEAN

RATINGS

7

IN REPLICATION

OF EXPERIMENT

3

Final phrase Question type Causation Intentionality Manner

Idioms

Literal paraphrase

2.36 2.41 1.90

2.51 2.33 1.81

IDIOMATIC

EXPERIMENT

4

Experiment 4 attempted to provide further evidence showing that idioms are not equivalent in meaning to their literal paraphrases. Participants read stories that described different human events, such as revealing secrets, getting angry, losing control of themselves, and going insane. These stories contained information about the causes of the event, the intentionality of the action performed by each story’s protagonist, and the manner in which the actions were performed. Some stories depicted this information in a manner that was consistent with the entailments of particular conceptual metaphors (the no-violation contexts), while other stories separately violated one of these entailments (causation violation contexts, intentionality violation contexts, and manner violation contexts). At the end of each story, participants were presented with either an idiomatic expression (e.g., spill the beans) or a literal paraphrase of the idiom (e.g., reveal the secret). The participants read and rated the appropriateness of each final phrase for that context. The conceptual view of idiomaticity predicts that participants should rate the idioms (e.g., spill the beans) as being more appropriate than their literal paraphrases (e.g., reveal the secret) in the no-violation stories. If people draw specific inferences about the meanings of idioms, then readers should judge these idioms as being particularly appropriate in contexts that explicitly described these inferences. However, if readers view idioms as having very specific figurative interpretations, due in part to the conceptual metaphors that motivate their meanings, they should also judge idioms as being far less appropriate in contexts that explicitly contradicted or violated these meanings (e.g., the different violation contexts). Literal paraphrases are not as constrained in their meanings as are idiomatic phrases and should be more appropriate in violation story contexts than is the case

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with idioms. Overall, then, the rating data should give evidence of an interaction between type of final phrase and type of context. Methods Subjects.

Twenty-eight undergraduate students from the same population used in the previous studies participated in this experiment . Stimuli and design. The experiment incorporated a 4 (Context condition) X 2 (Final phrase) completely crossed factorial design. Sixteen stories were written that correctly depicted all three entailments for each conceptual domain (four stories for anger, four for revelation, four for control, and four for insanity). These 16 stories were then individually altered to contradict or violate one of the three metaphorical entailments to produce a causation violation story, an intentionality violation story, and a manner violation story. The 64 stories were then crossed with the two types of final phrases (idioms or literal paraphrases) to produce a total of 128 stories. These were then divided into eight counterbalanced lists of stimuli such that, across the entire experiment, an equal number of participants saw each final phrase in each of the four context conditions (a Latin square design). Table 8 presents an example of each violation context for one of the revelation idioms. Procedure. The participants were randomly assigned to receive one of the eight booklets that contained the instructions and stimuli material. The participants’ task was to read each story and rate on a scale of 1 to 7 the degree to which the final phrase fit the preceding story context (with 1 indicating “does not fit with the context” and 7 indicating “fits extremely well with the context”). The task took approximately 20 min to complete. Results

and Discussion

The mean appropriateness ratings for each type of final phrase in each type of

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TABLE 8 EXAMPLESOF~TIMULI INEXPERIMENT~ No-violation story John heard some interesting gossip about Paul and Mary. Even though Paul and Mary were married to other people, they had recently started having a passionate atfair. John was very surprised when he found out about the affair. Although he promised not to tell anyone, the knowledge that Paul and Mary were deeply in love was too much for John to contain. John kept quiet about it for over a week, but one day John called up another friend who knew Paul and Mary and accidently blurted out what he knew. The friend commented to John that he had really spilled the beans. or revealed the secret. Causation violation story John heard some interesting gossip about Paul and Mary. Even though Paul and Mary were married to other people, they had recently started having a passionate affair. John was very surprised when he found out about the affair. John fully intended never to say a word to anyone. The fact that he heard about the affair caused him no difticulty and he felt no urge to tell anyone. One day when John was talking to someone who knew Paul and Mary he accidentally said something about what he knew. John spilled the beans. or John revealed the secret. Intentionality violation story John heard some interesting gossip about Paul and Mary. Even though Paul and Mary were married to other people, they had recently started having a passionate atfair. John was very surprised when he found out about the affair. John fully intended never to say a word to anyone. John kept quiet about it for over a week, but eventually the pressure got to him. One day he was talking to someone who knew Paul and Mary, when John purposefully and intentionally said something about what he knew. The friend commented to John that he had really spilled the beans. or revealed the secret. Manner violation story John heard some interesting gossip about Paul and Mary. Even though Paul and Mary were married to other people, they had recently started having a passionate affair. John was very surprised when he found out about the affair. Although he promised not to tell anyone, the information was too much for John to contain. Soon John thought he’d explode if he didn’t tell someone. So, John called up another friend who knew Paul and Mary. He then calmly and quietly explained what he knew. John spilled the beans. or John revealed the secret.

context are presented in Table 9. The overall standard deviation for these ratings was .98. Note that higher ratings indicate that the phrase was more appropriate given a particular context. Initial analyses showed that the effect of the list was not significant, nor did it interact with any other variables. Subsequent analyses collapsed across this variable. Analyses of variance on participants’ ratings showed that people found the literal paraphrases more appropriate across all

contexts than were the idioms, F,(1,27) = 4.46, p < .05, F,(1,15) = 3.37, p < .lO. Moreover, there was significant variation in participants’ ratings of the different contexts, F,(3,81) = 10.22,~ < .Ol, F,(3,45) = 6.81, p < .Ol. Most importantly, the interaction between final phrase and type of context was also reliable, F,(3,81) = 7.87, p < .Ol, F,(3,45) = 4.56, p < .Ol. Further analyses on the individual means using Newman-Keuls tests indicated that participants gave somewhat higher ratings

IDIOMATIC

TABLE MEAN

APPROPRIATENESS

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4

Final phrase Context

Idioms

Literal paraphrase

No violation Causation violation Intentionality violation Manner violation

5.40 4.54 4.52 3.10

5.03 5.22 4.85 4.51

to idioms than they did to literal paraphrases in the no-violation contexts (p < .lO across subjects, p > .lO across items). This provides some support for the idea that people find idioms more appropriate to use in situations where the causation, intentionality, and manner in which some event is described matches the underlying conceptual metaphor that motivates the meaning of the idiom. Participants also rated idioms in the no-violation contexts as being significantly more appropriate than in any of the violation contexts 0, < .05 for each comparison across both subjects and items). However, participants found the literal phrases to be no less appropriate in the causation and intentionality violation conditions than in the no-violation contexts. It appears that, contrary to idioms, literal paraphrases are reasonable to use in almost any type of context, regardless of the cause and intentionality of the event described. The participants gave somewhat lower ratings to the literal paraphrases in the manner violation contexts than in the no-violation condition (p < .lO across subjects, p > .lO across items). Finally, people gave significantly lower appropriateness rating to idioms in the causation and manner violation contexts than they did to literal paraphrases in the same contexts 0, < .05 for all three comparisons across both subjects and items). The difference between the ratings for idioms and literal paraphrases for the intentionality violation contexts was not statistically reliable. These findings further demonstrate that idioms such as spill the beans are not equiv-

alent in meaning to their literal paraphrases such as reveal the secret. Idiomatic phrases have very specific figurative meanings that results from the entailments of the underlying conceptual metaphors that motivate their figurative interpretations. Literal phrases, such as reveal the secret, are not motivated by the same conceptual metaphors and consequently are less specific in meaning. For this reason, literal phrases are more appropriate to use in a variety of situations than are idiom phrases which are more specific in their meanings. EXPERIMENT

5

It is reasonable to suppose that the results of the previous study might be due to the poor quality of the literal paraphrases rather than to any essential differences in the meanings of idioms and their literal paraphrases. Of course, any idiom might be adequately paraphrased with a very long definition containing many sentences that spell out all of its specific entailments. But most theories assume that the meanings of idioms can be represented by short phrases or single words (Cruse, 1986; Palmer, 1981), and idiom dictionaries certainly define idioms in this way. The paraphrases used in the previous study came directly from those judged by participants in both Gibbs and O’Brien (1990) and Nayak and Gibbs (1990) as being the best possible literal definitions for these expressions, Nonetheless, these paraphrases could perhaps be altered to better reflect an idiom’s complex meaning. For instance, the idiom blow your stack might be better paraphrased as “to react very angrily” instead of “to get very angry.” Experiment 5 replicated the previous study using the same story contexts and idioms, but with a revised set of paraphrases. The revised paraphrases attempted to capture more information about the manner in which the actions described were performed (e.g., how people get angry, reveal secrets, go insane, and to exert authority).

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Methods Subjects. Twenty-four subjects from the same population used in the previous studies participated in this experiment. Stimuli, design, and procedure. The stimuli, design, and procedure in this study were identical to these used in Experiment 4 with the exception that the literal paraphrases were revised. Each paraphrase was altered by changing or adding a few words that better captured some of the information about the causation, intentionality, or manner in which the action described by each idiom was performed. For anger the new phrase was to react very angry, for revelation the literal phrase was to quickly reveal the secret, for insanity the phrase was to go quickly insane, and for control the literal paraphrase was toforcefully take control. These new literal paraphrases were somewhat longer than their corresponding idiom phrases, unlike the situations in Experiments 2, 3, and 4. Results and Discussion

Table 10 presents the mean appropriateness ratings for both idioms and the literal paraphrases in the different contexts. The overall standard deviation for these ratings was .91. Again, higher ratings indicated that the phrase was more appropriate given its context. Once again, preliminary analyses showed no effect of list and the fact that this variable did not interact with any other factor. Subsequent analyses collapsed across this variable. Analyses of variance on the parTABLE10 APPROPRIATENESS RATINGS FOR EXPERIMENT 5 Final phrase Context

Idioms

Literal paraphrase

No violation Causation violation Intentionality violation Manner violation

5.27 4.48 4.65 3.78

4.84 5.01 5.12 4.61

W. GIBBS, JR.

ticipants’ ratings showed the literal paraphrases were viewed as being more appropriate across all contexts than were the idioms, F,(1,23) = 5.06, p < .05, F,(l,lS) = 4.47, p < .05. Moreover, there was significant variation in participants’ ratings of the different contexts, Fi(3,69) = 8.52, p < .Ol, F,(3,45) = 4.66, p < .05. The interaction between final phrase and type of context was also reliable, F,(3,69) = 5.75, p < .Ol, F,(3,45) = 3.84, p -=c.05.

Further analyses on the individual means using Newman-Keuls tests indicated that participants gave higher ratings to idioms than they did to literal paraphrases in the no-violation contexts (p < .05 across subjects and items). People also rated idioms in the no-violation contexts as being significantly more appropriate than in any of the violation contexts (p < .05 for each comparison across subjects and items). And again, the participants found the literal phrases to be no less appropriate in the causation and intentionality violation conditions than in the no-violation contexts. Finally, the participants gave lower ratings to idioms in all three violation contexts than they did to literal paraphrases in the same contexts (p < .05 for each comparison across subjects, p < .05 for causation and manner violations context, and p > .lO for intentionality violation contexts across items). The pattern of results in this study is nearly identical to that found with the set of literal paraphrases used in the previous experiment. It appears then that the differences noted between the appropriateness of idioms and their literal paraphrases in Experiment 4 were not due to any particular idiosyncrasies of the brief literal paraphrases employed as stimuli. EXPERIMENT 6

Experiment 6 employed a self-paced reading time task to examine processing differences in comprehending idiomatic phrases and literal paraphrases in story contexts that either maintained or violated

IDIOMATIC

the entailments of different conceptual metaphors. Participants read the same stories and final phrases used as stimuli in Experiment 4. Reading times for the final phrases should vary in an inverse pattern to the rating data obtained in Experiments 4 and 5. Participants should find it easier to comprehend idiom phrases in story contexts that mentioned all of the entailments of the conceptual metaphors that motivate these phrases’ figurative meanings than when they read idioms in contexts that contradicted one of these entailments. Thus, participants should find it easier to process an idiom such as blow your stuck in a story context with causation, intentionality, and manner entailments that are consistent with the ANGER IS HEATED FLUID IN A CONTAINER than to read this same idiom in contexts that violated one of the entailments. On the other hand, people should find literal sentences no more difficult to process in the various violation contexts than in the no-violation stories. Overall, there should be evidence of an interaction in reading times between type of final phrase and type of violation context. Methods

Twenty-eights undergraduates from the same population used in the previous studies participated in this study. Stimuli and design. The stimuli and design of this study are identical to that employed in Experiment 4. The literal paraphrases from Experiment 4, rather than Experiment 5, were used so as to be closer in length with the corresponding idiom phrases. The idioms and their corresponding literal paraphrases did not significantly differ in length as measured by the total number of characters. Procedure. The participants were randomly assigned to read one of the eight counterbalanced lists of stories. The scenarios were presented one line at a time on the CRT that is under the control of an IBM Personal System/2 Model 30 computer system. The participants were instructed to Subjects.

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read each line of the story as it appeared and to press a designated button as soon as they understood it. When the designated key was pressed the next sentence of the scenario appeared. Participants read through the stories in this line-by-line manner until they read the final phrase (either an idiom or a literal paraphrase). The participants were instructed to give their comprehension responses as quickly as possible, but to be sure that they understood each line before pressing the designated button. Response latencies were measured from the onset of the phrase to when the participant pressed the response key. Five hundred milliseconds following comprehension of the final phrase, a simple YesNo question was presented that the participants answered using the designated keys. The question concerned some detail in the story to ensure that the participants followed the experimental instructions. Following the Yes-No response to the question, the first line of the next story appeared. The stories were presented in a different random order for each participant. The experiment took about 20 min to complete . Results

and Discussion

All comprehension latencies longer than three standard deviations from the mean were truncated (less than 2%). These outliers represent cases in which experimental instructions could not have been followed, as when participants’ attention wandered from the task. Only those comprehension responses that were followed by correct answers to the Yes-No questions were included in the analyses (98% of all the data). Table 11 presents the mean reading times for the two kinds of final phrases in the different story contexts. The overall standard deviation for these reading times was 1072. Preliminary analyses indicated that list was not a significant factor, nor did it interact with any other variable. The following analyses reported collapsed across this factor. Analyses of variance on the reading

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TABLE 11 MEAN READING TIMES IN EXPERIMENT 6 Final phrase Context

Idioms

Literal paraphrase

No violation Causation violation Intentionality violation Manner violation

2249 2623 2689 3005

2596 2444 2636 2713

Note. Times in milliseconds.

time data revealed a significant main effect of context, F,(3,174) = 5.96, p < .OOl; F,(3,45) = 4.22, p < .05. The effect of final phrase did not approach significance, both F’s < 1, although the interaction between violation context and final phrase was highly reliable, F,(3,174) = 4.00, p < .Ol; F,(3,45) = 2.98, p < .05.

Further examination of the individual means using Newman-Keuls tests indicated that participants were faster to read idioms than literal paraphrases in the noviolation contexts (p < .Ol across subjects and items). This result is consistent with the findings of previous research on processing differences between idioms and literal phrases (Gibbs, 1980, 1986; Gibbs & Gonzales, 1985; Gibbs, Nayak, & Cutting, 1989; Swinney & Cutler, 1979). More specifically, though, the present data suggest that people find idioms easier to process in situations where the causation, intentionality, and manner in which some event is described matches the entailments of the underlying conceptual metaphors that motivate the meanings of these idioms. Participants also found idioms easier to read in the no-violation contexts than in any of the other violation scenarios (p < .Ol for each contrast across both subjects and items). At the same time, people took more time to read idioms in each of the violation contexts than they did to read literal paraphrases in the same stories, significantly so for the causation and manner violation contexts @ < .05 for both contrasts across subjects and items). The literal paraphrases, on

the other hand, were not significantly easier to read in no-violation contexts than in either the causation or intentionality violation contexts. In fact, people took somewhat less time to read the literal paraphrases in the causation violation contexts than when seen in the no-violation stories (p < .lO across subjects, p > .lO across items). The differences in reading times for literal phrases in the no-violation and intentionality violation contexts and for the noviolation and manner violation contexts were not statistically reliable. The results of Experiment 6 indicate that idioms and their literal paraphrases are differentially easy to process depending on how well the discourse context encodes information about the causation, intentionality, and manner of human events to which idioms refer. When certain human events, such as, getting angry, revealing a secret, going insane, and exerting control, are conceptualized in a manner that is consistent with entailments of certain conceptual metaphors, processing of idioms that are motivated by these same conceptual metaphors is easily accomplished. Literal paraphrases are more flexible in meaning, since they are not constrained by conceptual metaphors in the same way as are idioms. Consequently, people find literal paraphrases of idioms roughly equivalent in difficulty to process in a variety of discourse situations. GENERAL

DISCUSSION

Traditional theories of idiomaticity assume that idioms are qualitatively different from metaphorical language, partly because metaphorical expressions are irreducible and resist paraphrase into equivalent literal language. Idioms are mostly viewed as dead metaphors with simple figurative meanings that are arbitrarily determined and best captured by short literal phrases. My contention is that many idioms possess a similar irresistibility to simple literal paraphrase as do verbal metaphors, precisely because the figurative meanings of idioms are nartiallv motivated bv metanhorical

IDIOMATIC

mappings of conceptual knowledge from various sources to target domains. The results of the present experiments indicate that idioms referring to human events, such as, getting angry, exerting control, revealing secrets, and going crazy, differ considerably from literal paraphrases. Experiment 1 showed that people’s intuitions about the source domains of conceptual metaphors that motivate the meanings of particular idioms closely match their understandings of what these idioms really mean. Such data support the idea that the mappings of source-to-target domain information in conceptual metaphors preserve the structural characteristics or cognitive topology of the source domains (Lakoff, 1990). The invariant sourceto-target domain mappings in conceptual metaphors do not mean that some concepts are never understood in their own terms. There could very well be some structures in our conceptualizations of human events, such as, for getting angry, revealing secrets, going insane, taking control, and so forth, that are independent of metaphor. This research strategy of predicting idiomatic meaning, based on people’s intuitions of various source domains, differs from that employed by cognitive linguists who make inferences about the conceptual foundations of meaning from analyses of linguistic expressions (cf. Kovecses, 1986; Lakoff, 1987). My work takes advantage of the cognitive linguistic analyses to pick idioms and source domains that are likely to be motivated by conceptual metaphor. But the data from this first study are important because they provide an independent, non-linguistic way of partially predicting what specific meanings some idioms are likely to possess, based on the analyses of certain metaphorical concepts in long-term memory. Experiments 2 and 3 demonstrated that people view idioms as having more complex meanings than they do literal paraphrases of idioms. These studies only examined three of the entailments that arise from conceptual mappings of source-to-

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target domain information (e.g., causation, intentionality, and manner) and might actually underestimate the true complexity of idiomatic meaning. Earlier studies suggest that idioms might differ in other ways from simple literal expressions such as in the reversibility and consequences of human actions (Gibbs & O’Brien, 1990). The present data should therefore be viewed as proving a lower limit as to what idioms really mean. Simple literal phrases do not possess the same kind of specificity about the causation, intentionality, and manner of the human actions referred to by the idioms considered here. Experiments 4 through 6 showed that people find idioms as more appropriate and easier to understand when they are seen in discourse contexts that are consistent with the various entailments of these phrases. Previous research revealed that the metaphorical structure of discourse can make some idioms more appropriate to use than others even when these different idioms share the same general figurative meaning. Thus, blow your stack and bite your head off are differentially appropriate in discourse depending on whether the person’s anger is metaphorically conceptualized as ANGER IS HEATED FLUID IN A CONTAINER or ANGER IS ANIMAL BEHAVIOR (Nayak & Gibbs, 1990). The present studies more precisely show that idiom use and comprehension varies depending on how discourse encodes information about the entailments of the conceptual metaphors that partially motivate why these idioms mean what they do. For this reason, blow your stack and jlip your lid might not be appropriate to use in all contexts referring to people getting very angry. But they are certainly appropriate to use and easy to understand when spoken in situations where the cause of someone’s anger is some internal pressure, where the expression of anger is unintentional, and when someone’s anger is conveyed to others in a very explosive, abrupt manner. Literal paraphrases, such as get very angry,

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can be more appropriately used in many plenty of basic conventional metaphors that different kinds of situations because these are alive, certainly enough to show that literal phrases are less specific in their what is conventional and fixed need not be meanings. dead (Lakoff & Turner, 1989). The fact that some idioms have complex The present studies, along with those of figurative interpretation that are partially Gibbs and Nayak (1990) and Gibbs and motivated by metaphorical schemes of O’Brien (1990), clearly demonstrate that thought refutes the assumption that all idi- the meanings of idioms are not arbitrary oms are simply “dead” metaphors. Al- and dead, but are motivated by metaphorithough the present studies examined a cal schemes of thought that are very much small number of idioms and literal para- part of our everyday thinking and reasonphrases, there are good reasons to suspect ing. These same metaphorical schemes of that these results can be generalized to ac- thought explain the systematicity in other, count for hundreds, perhaps, thousands of non-idiomatic expressions that are ubiquiidioms in English. Cognitive linguistic stud- tous in everyday speech. For instance: His ies of idiomatic language suggest that many pent-up anger welled up inside of him; My formulaic phrases in a wide variety of lan- anger kept building up inside me; She got guages have fairly transparent metaphoric all steamed up; and I’m fuming are not independent literal expressions, perhaps reroots. Of course, there are many idiomatic phrases that are truly “dead” in the sense flecting different dead metaphors, but corthat their historical roots are completely respond to the MIND IS A CONTAINER opaque to contemporary speakers. But it is and ANGER IS HEATED FLUID IN A terribly misleading to lump all idioms to- CONTAINER metaphors which motivate gether into one theoretical category, for the meanings of various idiomatic phrases these expressions differ on a variety of his- such as hit the ceiling, jlip your lid, and torical, conceptual, semantic, and syntactic blow your stack. The meanings of these dimensions (Gibbs, 1990, in press; Gibbs & non-idiomatic phrases should have similar Nayak, 1989; Glucksberg, in press). Scholentailments as do their cousin idiomatic expressions, because they are all motivated ars often treat idioms simply as dead metaphors because they hold the belief that all by the same conceptual metaphors. Thus, metaphors that are conventional in our or- the differences noted in the present experdinary language must be dead and really not iments between idioms and literal phrases metaphors any longer (Gibbs, in press; La- are not really a matter of distinguishing beand literal language. koff & Turner, 1989). This position fails to tween idiomatic Rather, the differences lie in exactly which distinguish between conventional metaphors, which are part of our everyday con- conceptual knowledge motivates the existence and meanings of each linguistic exceptual system (e.g., MIND IS A CONpression. Even though our conceptualizaTAINER, ANGER IS HEATED FLUID tions of anger, insanity, revelation, and so IN A CONTAINER), and historical metaon are highly metaphorical, the variety of phors that have long since died out. The different conceptual metaphors we have for conflation of dead and conventional metaeach concept makes simple literal expresphors is partly due to the mistaken assumpsions such as “to get very angry” or “to tion that things in our cognition that are reveal the secret” less exact in their meanmost alive and most active are those that ings than are idioms that are individually are conscious. On the contrary, those that motivated by single conceptual metaphors. are most alive and most deeply entrenched, Being able to actually predict something efficient, and powerful are those that are so about what idioms mean, based on an indeautomatic as to be unconscious and effortof the conceptual less (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). There are pendent understanding

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metaphors that motivate idiomatic meaning, raises two questions. The first concerns whether people ordinarily activate or instantiate some underlying metaphorical source to target domain mapping each time that they encounter an idiomatic expression in discourse. It seems best right now to take the conservative position that the present results, along with those offered by Gibbs and O’Brien (1990) and Nayak and Gibbs (MM), do not provide evidence in support of the on-line activation of conceptual metaphors during idiom comprehension. What is needed, and what might be quite difficult to provide, are on-line studies that specititally examine whether metaphorical knowledge is automatically instantiated when people read or hear idioms (Gibbs, 1992). The lack of such evidence does not negate the significance of the present studies demonstrating the metaphorical motivation for idiomatic meaning. A second question is whether people actually infer all of the complex meanings that many idioms appear to possess each and every time an idiom is understood. The result of the present findings, at the very least, suggest that people often infer specific meanings for idioms that are more complex than is implied when people read simple literal paraphrases of these expressions. Determining whether or not people draw such inferences each time they read or hear an idiom remains an open question. It seems clear, though, that our sense of what idioms mean partially depends on our tacit understanding of the conceptual metaphors that link these phrases with their figurative meanings. It is precisely because idioms are evocative of different metaphorical information that these phrases play such a significant role in our talk about everyday experience. REFERENCES BOATNER, M., GATES, J., & MAKKAI, A. (1975). A dictionary of American idioms. New York: Baron’s Educational Series. COWIE, A., MACKIN, R., & MCCAIG, I. (1983) Oxford

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