Exploring psycholinguistic reality of local grammar patterns: a case study of health metaphor in research articles of economics

Abstract In corpus linguistics, local grammar has been recognized as an effective approach to describing the semantic patterns of language for a particular communicative function/meaning. However, no study has yet examined whether the semantic patterns (i.e. local grammar patterns) produced by local grammar analyses are psychologically real for language learners. To assess the psycholinguistic reality of local grammar patterns, it is reasonable to start with testing whether such patterns can affect language learners’ processing of their corresponding language instances. This study used an eye movement experiment to test whether the local grammar patterns of a particular type of metaphorical expressions (i.e. health metaphor) in research articles of economics can influence Chinese EFL learners’ perception and comprehension of these expressions. The results showed that the occurrence of particular meanings and the positioning of the meanings in the patterns significantly affected the learners’ processing. These findings provide evidence for the psycholinguistic reality of local grammar patterns. The study also provides theoretical implications for local grammar research and metaphor research and pedagogical implications for metaphor teaching.