Hemispheric dominance of metaphor processing for Chinese-English bilinguals: DVF and ERPs evidence

Abstract

This study investigated whether metaphors are predominantly processed in the right or left hemisphere when using Chinese and English metaphors in Chinese bilingual speakers. The role of familiarity in processing of metaphorical and literal expressions in both the first and second language was studied with brain-event-related potentials using a divided-visual-field paradigm. The participants were asked to perform plausibility judgments for Chinese (L1) and English (L2) familiar and unfamiliar metaphorical and literal sentences. The results obtained using parameter-free cluster permutation statistics suggest a different pattern of brain responses for metaphor processing in L1 and L2, and that both metaphoricity and familiarity have an effect on the brain response pattern of both Chinese and English metaphor processing. However, the brain responses were distributed bilaterally across hemispheres, suggesting no clear evidence for lateralization of processing of metaphorical meanings. This is inconsistent with the Graded Salience Hypothesis and Fine-Coarse Semantic Coding Theory, which posited a right hemisphere advantage of non-salient and coarse semantic processing.