Reading Proverbs in Context:The Role of Explicit Markers

We examined how explicit markers or "introductory formulae," which are used for signaling that statements should be interpreted literally or nonliterally, influence the online processing of proverbs. Familiar or unfamiliar proverbial statements were presented in contexts that were biased toward either their literal and nonliteral meanings, and were always preceded immediately by either proverbially speaking, in a manner of speaking, literally speaking, or no marker. The main hypothesis was that the markers, in combination with the contexts, should act as strong constraints on whether people interpret the statements literally or nonliterally. The results demonstrated that each form of marker had a unique effect on the reading of different regions of the proverbial statements, and that they have a stronger in.uence in reducing ambiguity associated with the meanings of unfamiliar proverbs than with familiar proverbs. This research is the .rst to systematically examine the role of explicit markers in the moment-by-moment processing of nonliteral language. Results are discussed in relation to existent models of nonliteral language comprehension.