What does Neuroscience have to tell us (or not yet) about metaphor processing?

Abstract:

Neuroimaging research on the processing of metaphor presents different findings, which implies difficulties in formulating a theoretical paradigm of the metaphor in a neurological perspective. In this study, we argue that the lack of clarity of conceptual aspects about metaphor from a linguistic perspective implies diversities in the experiments design and incongruities in the findings. To support this argument, we present a qualitative meta-analysis of a corpus composed of 20 fMRI experiments on the processing of metaphor, under two aspects: the conceptual foundations of metaphor and the findings obtained in the experiments. As a result, we find that the absence of a dialogue between Neuroscience and Linguistics about the metaphor properties results in a problematic delimitation of a metaphor processing pattern under a neurological bias.

Keywords:
Processing metaphor; Neuroscience; fMRI; Meta-analysis