分级显性意义假说——语义处理新理论

Graded Salience Hypothesis: A New Theory of Figurative Language Comprehension

以色列语言学家Giora于1997～2002年间提出了一个新的（非直义1）语言处理假说:分级显性意义假说（GSH）。该假说认为,在话语处理中（尤其是隐喻、惯用语、反语和幽默语言）,显性意义总是首先通达。显性意义是在心理词典中编码的意义,有时是直义,有时是与语境吻合的意义,有时同时是直义和与语境吻合的意义。意义的显性程度由使用频率、熟悉程度、约定性以及典型性确定。GSH只说明语义的初期处理,随后的意义整合过程有保留假说解释,二者结合构成完整的语义处理过程。该假说弥补了一直居主导地位的直接通达假说和模块假说都只能片面解释非直义句处理过程的不足。本文在全面评述该假说的基础上,讨论了其理论价值和面临的挑战。

Giora, R, a linguist in Tel Aviv University, summarizes in her newly published monograph On our mind: Salience, context, and figurative language (2002)her new theory of figurative language comprehension as Graded Salience Hypothesis (GSH), which covers a rich series of studies starting from 1997 up to 2002. The hypothesis holds that in figurative language comprehension, esp. in metaphors, idioms, puns and jokes, the salient meaning is always initially accessed. The salient meaning refers to the meaning encoded in the mental lexicon, which can be either the literal meaning in some contexts, or the contextually appropriate meaning in others, or both in still other contexts. Salience is determined by frequency, conventionality, familiarity and prototypicality. GSH can only account for the initial processing while the later processing stage of integration is to be accounted for by the retention hypothesis. The theoretical advantage of GSH is that it intends to fill inthe theoretical gap——the dominant theories of both direct access hypothesis and the modular view offigurative language comprehension can explain the figurative language processing only partially and both leave some processing phenomena unaccounted for. The paper is intended to give a comprehensive review of GSH, emphasizing on its theoretical advantages and the challenges it still encounters or is to encounter.