Number of shared topic-vehicle significant features affects speakers’ preference for metaphorical expressions

Abstract

This study examined whether the number of shared topic-vehicle significant features affects speakers’ preference for the use of metaphorical rather than literal expressions. Across five experiments, participants were asked to choose one expression that best paraphrased a given sentence from a list of options. The results of Experiments 1 and 5 showed that participants’ choice of metaphorical expression increased with greater numbers of shared topic-vehicle significant features in a given sentence. In Experiments 2 and 4, we found that the effect of the number of unshared features was smaller than that of shared significant features. Experiment 3 replicated the findings of Experiment 2 when metaphors were replaced with similes. Our results suggest that the number of topic-attributed features affects participants’ preference in the use of metaphorical expressions. Our results support the fundamental tenets of the inexpressibility hypothesis in the context of metaphor form preference.