摘要
自20世纪80年代以来,人们对隐喻的研究从传统的修辞学和语义学研究逐步发展到认知研究,其研究方法也逐渐多样化、多学科化,从行为研究、认知心理学研究发展到神经科学的研究。功能核磁共振(fMRI)应用于隐喻研究为人们探讨隐喻认知神经机制提供了新的手段和视角。本文对fMRI在词汇、句子及语篇层面的隐喻研究进行了综述,并试图分析这些研究结论不一的原因,指出这种研究必须综合考虑隐喻的熟悉度、任务类型、难度及呈现方式等因素。针对目前fMRI的隐喻研究所存在的局限性,作者提出了相关建议。
The availability of functional magnetic resonance imaging （fMRI） has revolutionized the study of language, especially figurative language such as metaphor comprehension. The last decade has witnessed considerable research on the neural mechanisms of metaphor comprehension at word, sentence, and discourse levels respectively. This paper offers a general review of fMRI investigations into the neural networks involved in metaphor processing to date. First we introduce how metaphor studies can be done by means of fMRI technique at word, sentence and discourse levels. Then we discuss several confounding factors such as familiarity, and task demand and difficulty, which may lead to inconsistent results in fMRI experiments. Finally, we try to propose some constructive suggestions for further research in this field.
