Lexicalization Degree of Figurative Meaning Affects the Mental Organization of Body-Related Metaphorical Words in Chinese

The purpose of the present study was to examine how body-related Chinese metaphorical words are organized when the degree of lexicalization is taken into consideration. Three experiments were conducted using multidimensional scaling (MDS) and a priming paradigm. The results in Exp. 1 and 2 indicated that the dispersion of metaphorical words was influenced by degree of lexicalization to produce a clear separation between a cluster of highly lexicalized metaphorical words (HM) and a cluster of body-part words (BW) with partially lexicalized metaphorical words (LM) scattering between these two clusters. Semantic priming effect based on a word’s literal meaning was then assessed in Exp. 3 by contrasting a picture-word match condition with a picture-word mismatch condition using these three types of words. Significant positive priming effect was found for the BW words but not the LM words, while a reversed inhibitory effect was found for the HM words. Briefly, with the direct evidence from Exp. 1 and 2 showing a unique dispersion in the Euclidean distance map and the indirect evidence from Exp. 3 revealing the existence of literal meanings for the LM but not the HM words, this study showed that metaphorical words are organized based on their degree of lexicalization.