Description du projet
Comprendre les figures de style
Les métaphores utilisent les sens non littéraux des mots pour exprimer un sens figuré, mais quels sont les processus cognitifs à l’œuvre? D’un point de vue neurologique, les métaphores déclenchent une réponse différente du cerveau par rapport aux significations littérales. La compréhension des métaphores n’est réalisée qu’aux derniers stades du développement. En outre, elle est souvent perturbée chez les personnes atteintes de troubles psychiatriques ou neurologiques. En recourant à des méthodes comportementales et électrophysiologiques, le projet PROMENADE, financé par l’UE, développera un modèle complet qui intègre et explique ces observations. Il espère conclure que les sens littéraux sont compréhensibles avant les sens figurés, et que les différents types de métaphores pourraient activer des processus visuels et sensorimoteurs. De manière générale, PROMENADE permettra de mieux comprendre la façon dont les compétences relatives aux métaphores se développent, mûrissent et se détériorent.
Objectif
As the master figure of speech, metaphor is a powerful communicative tool that might nevertheless come with costs for our processing system. Research in different fields has highlighted that a full-fledged metaphor comprehension capacity is a late achievement in development, it may decay as a consequence of several pathological conditions, and it evokes distinctive electrical activity in our brain compared to literal equivalents. However, we still miss a comprehensive framework able to account for all these empirical findings in a unitary fashion, and this despite a vast number of linguistic and cognitive accounts of metaphor. This project will ground on theoretical insights from the pragmatics of language to sketch a novel and comprehensive model of metaphor understanding able to account for neural, developmental, and clinical findings. The leading hypothesis is that metaphor comprehension is an inferential process that involves first adjusting the lexical concepts, and then deriving the implicated -non-literal- meaning. The model also takes into account the multiplicity of metaphor types, which might in turn engage visual images and sensory-motor processes, in line with recent multimodal accounts of lexical and semantic processing. The model will be tested and refined through a series of behavioral and electrophysiological studies employing innovative experimental paradigms and involving neurotypical adults, children, and individuals with psychiatric and neurodegenerative diseases. This multidisciplinary approach will lead to a significant breakthrough in our understanding of metaphor as the pinnacle of human verbal creativity, in addition to disclosing important aspects for research on language processing, development and decay.
Champ scientifique
Mots‑clés
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Régime de financement
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC GrantsInstitution d’accueil
27100 Pavia
Italie