Herbert L Colston
Biographic Data
| ID | 230589 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Herbert L Colston |
| GIVEN NAMES | Herbert L |
| FAMILY NAME | Colston |
| SIGNATURE | COLSTON H L |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Alberta |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1256-0892 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 29 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 156 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 29 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1995 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Metaphor in the Mirror
There is a wonderful irony about metaphor, which may also serve as a lesson. Metaphor, quintessentially, involves the notion that to better understand or know something, it helps to look at that so
High ceilings and ingenuine allies: Tapping into the idiom meaning knowledge of first and second language speakers of English
Idioms are undoubtedly important for second language (L2) learners, who encounter them in instructed learning, textbooks/resources and in out-of-class language use. While research on first language (L1) and L2 idiom comprehension shows how well L1/L2 speakers understand various idioms and the role of different predictors, important questions remain about how knowledge varies with more difficult task types and stimuli, how well L1 ‘norms’ serve L2…
Is That a Genuine Smile? Emoji-Based Sarcasm Interpretation Across the Lifespan
Emoji appear to be an important cue to judge whether a statement is sarcastic in computer-mediated communication. In this study, we investigated whether the smiling emoji, an indicator of sarcastic intention in the Chinese culture, exerts an influence on sarcasm interpretation across the lifespan. Statements accompanied with or without a smiling emoji were compared in unambiguous (Experiment 1) and ambiguous (Experiment 2) contexts. The results o…
Super Figures: Poetry, Picture Poetry, and Art in the Service of Human Connection
There is an irony in that, the modern empirical and scientific study of metaphor, as arguably the major form of figurativity, arose in part from a realization that metaphor resides in territories s
Measurement matters: An afterword on current challenges in metaphor research
Researchers studying metaphor, as a human artifact, as a thing we use in communicating and expression, as an ability we acquire, as a seemingly fundamental process in human embodied cognition, and in other guises, face many methodological hurdles. This article considers several categories of such challenges, and with reference to and in partnership with the other articles in this special issue, seeks to suggest some means of overcoming or at leas…
On Poetry and the Science(s) of Meaning
Back to the Poem: A Call for A Special Issue on the Poetics of Metaphor
On January 1, 2020, I (the first author), started my term as the new Editor in Chief of Metaphor and Symbol. I wanted to inaugurate that moment with a short editorial piece in the journal seeking t
“… If We Look Slightly Askance, We See it All”
I am pleased to receive the reigns of Metaphor and Symbol from Ray Gibbs, who has served as Editor for no less than 19 years. Ray has guided the journal successfully over this time, an era of great
Figurative language development/acquisition research: Status and ways forward
Where is the humor in verbal irony
Irony is often related to humor, both in spoken and written language. One possibility is that humor arises once people reconcile the incongruity between what speakers say and imply when using irony. Humor automatically emerges in these cases given the release of tension following a momentary sense of disparity. Our claim is that this proposal does not capture many of the dynamic complexities in real-world ironic discourse. We describe psychologic…
Interpreting Figurative Meaning
Interpreting Figurative Meaning critically evaluates the recent empirical work from psycholinguistics and neuroscience examining the successes and difficulties associated with interpreting figurative language. There is now a huge, often contradictory literature on how people understand figures of speech. Gibbs and Colston argue that there may not be a single theory or model that adequately explains both the processes and products of figurative me…
Gender Differences in Verbal Irony Use
Potential causes of gender differences in perceived and reported verbal irony use are investigated. The study first presented written scenarios of speakers with indeterminate gender who made sarcastic comments. These speakers are judged to be more likely male than female, by both male and female participants. In a separate task, male participants also report a greater likelihood of using verbal irony relative to female participants. The study the…
Figurative Language Development Research and Popular Children's Literature: Why We Should Know, "Where the Wild Things Are"
Concerns have arisen recently over the ecological validity of materials used to study children's figurative language comprehension abilities. Materials commonly used in studies that evaluate children's comprehension of metaphorical language, for instance, are not as frequently found in popular children's literature (Broderick, 1992). In the following study, we first present arguments against the basis for this concern over ecological validity, bu…
Are Irony and Metaphor Understood Differently
In 4 experiments we examined differences in how people understand ironic and metaphoric statements. Our hypothesis was that irony requires more complex inferencing to understand than does metaphor because irony reflects speakers' second-order, metarepresentational thoughts. We investigated the implications of this idea for how people process identical statements (e.g., "This one's really sharp") that had either ironic or metaphoric meaning in dif…
On necessary conditions for verbal irony comprehension
The conditions for verbal irony comprehension implicitly or directly claimed as necessary by all of the recent philosophic, linguistic and psycholinguistic theories of verbal irony (Clark and Gerrig 1984; Kreuz and Glucksberg 1989; Kumon-Nakamura, Glucksberg and Brown 1995; Sperber and Wilson 1981, 1986) were experimentally tested. Allusion to a violation of expectations, predictions, desires, preferences, social norms, etc., was confirmed as a n…
Contrast of Kind Versus Contrast of Magnitude: The Pragmatic Accomplishments of Irony and Hyperbole
Verbal irony (e.g., "This is wonderful") and hyperbole (e.g., "This is the worst luck ever") perform pragmatic functions because they create contrasts between expected and ensuing events. Verbal irony uses contrasts of kind because positive comments are made about negative situations. Hyperbole uses contrasts of magnitude because very negative comments are made about moderately negative situations. This study assessed whether this difference enab…
Comprehending Speaker Intent in Rebuttal Analogy Use: The Role of Irony Mapping, Absurdity Comparison and Argumentative Convention
Rebuttal analogies (e.g., “Politicians arguing over the renaming of an airport is like watering your petunias when your house is on fire”) are commonly used as responses in verbal conflicts. The following study investigated the role that irony mapping, absurdity comparison, and argumentative convention play in interpreters' derivations of speaker`s intentions in using rebuttal analogies. In general, these intentions are to demonstrate the unsound…
Contrast and pragmatics in figurative language: Anything understatement can do, irony can do better
A proverb in mind: The cognitive science of proverbial wit and wisdom
Dewey Defeats Truman: Interpreting Ironic Restatement
When a speaker restates another person's inaccurate remark, for example, "Sure, Ronald Reagan was president during the 1970's," he or she runs a risk of being misunderstood-people might understand the response as verbal irony, but they also could readily interpret it literally. This study investigated an Ironic Implicature Hypothesis that speakers opt for this form of verbal irony because of the unique pragmatic functions it performs. The hypothe…
The Pragmatic Functions of Rebuttal Analogy
Rebuttal analogy takes the form, "Doing X is like doing Y" (e.g., "Choosing to burn fossil fuels instead of developing solar power is like volunteering to urinate in your drinking water"). It has two pragmatic functions: an argument and social attack against X and its advocates (Whaley & Holloway, 1996). The analogy's base level of irony can be controlled by a speaker. This study investigates whether this variation in irony provides speakers with…
Not good” is “bad,” but “not bad” is not “good”: An analysis of three accounts of negation asymmetry
This study evaluated 3 explanations for why speakers would opt for relatively complex negated forms in expressions when simpler direct forms are available. The results of 4 experiments on 104 participants revealed that events expected to turn out positively produce an asymmetry of negation: A direct negative term has the same meaning as a negated positive term, but a direct positive term does not have the same meaning as a negated negative term. …
Analogy and Irony: Rebuttal to "Rebuttal Analogy"
A recent theoretical note published in Metaphor and Symbolic Activity (Whaley & Holloway, 1996) argued for a distinction between analogies used for persuasion, or rebuttal analogies, and standard forms of analogy such as explanatory or expressive ones (Gentner, 1982, 1983). Whaley and Holloway proposed that two characteristics distinguish rebuttal analogies--argument and social attack. In this article, we take up these claims concerning rebuttal …
You'll Never Believe This: Irony and Hyperbole in Expressing Surprise
"I've Never Seen Anything Like It": Overstatement, Understatement, and Irony
Two experiments tested the extent to which surprise is indicated by overstatement, understatement, and irony. When events mm out unexpectedly and the expectations of characters were explicit, irony was more effective than overstatement and understatement. When expectations were not explicit and the situation had a negative outcome, overstatement was more effective than irony and understatement. The results show that the expressions do more than p…
Contrast and pragmatics in figurative language: Anything understatement can do, irony can do better
Salting a wound or sugaring a pill: The pragmatic functions of ironic criticism
Recent investigations of the pragmatic functions of ironic criticism (e.g., saying “Nice shot” to condemn a fellow player for missing a free throw and losing a basketball game) have argued that ironic criticism is used to dilute condemnation. Dews and Winner (1995) and Dews, Kaplan, and Winner (1995) showed that, relative to literal criticism (e.g., Terrible shot”), ironic criticism expresses less condemnation. This article reports the results of…
Contrast of Kind Versus Contrast of Magnitude: The Pragmatic Accomplishments of Irony and Hyperbole
Verbal irony (e.g., "This is wonderful") and hyperbole (e.g., "This is the worst luck ever") perform pragmatic functions because they create contrasts between expected and ensuing events. Verbal irony uses contrasts of kind because positive comments are made about negative situations. Hyperbole uses contrasts of magnitude because very negative comments are made about moderately negative situations. This study assessed whether this difference enab…
The cognitive psychological reality of image schemas and their transformations
Where is the humor in verbal irony
Irony is often related to humor, both in spoken and written language. One possibility is that humor arises once people reconcile the incongruity between what speakers say and imply when using irony. Humor automatically emerges in these cases given the release of tension following a momentary sense of disparity. Our claim is that this proposal does not capture many of the dynamic complexities in real-world ironic discourse. We describe psychologic…
You'll Never Believe This: Irony and Hyperbole in Expressing Surprise
Not good” is “bad,” but “not bad” is not “good”: An analysis of three accounts of negation asymmetry
This study evaluated 3 explanations for why speakers would opt for relatively complex negated forms in expressions when simpler direct forms are available. The results of 4 experiments on 104 participants revealed that events expected to turn out positively produce an asymmetry of negation: A direct negative term has the same meaning as a negated positive term, but a direct positive term does not have the same meaning as a negated negative term. …
A proverb in mind: The cognitive science of proverbial wit and wisdom
Figurative language development/acquisition research: Status and ways forward
Dewey Defeats Truman: Interpreting Ironic Restatement
When a speaker restates another person's inaccurate remark, for example, "Sure, Ronald Reagan was president during the 1970's," he or she runs a risk of being misunderstood-people might understand the response as verbal irony, but they also could readily interpret it literally. This study investigated an Ironic Implicature Hypothesis that speakers opt for this form of verbal irony because of the unique pragmatic functions it performs. The hypothe…
The cognitive psychological reality of image schemas and their transformations
Proverbs and the Metaphorical Mind
A major difficulty in studying figurative thought and language from an interdisciplinary perspective is that scholars can misunderstand the goals, methods, and terminology of researchers in academic fields different from their own. Our understanding of how people think, speak, and understand figuratively has indeed greatly benefited from interdisciplinary investigations published in Metaphor and Symbolic Activity. However, unfortunate misundersta…
How to Study Proverb Understanding
"I've Never Seen Anything Like It": Overstatement, Understatement, and Irony
Two experiments tested the extent to which surprise is indicated by overstatement, understatement, and irony. When events mm out unexpectedly and the expectations of characters were explicit, irony was more effective than overstatement and understatement. When expectations were not explicit and the situation had a negative outcome, overstatement was more effective than irony and understatement. The results show that the expressions do more than p…
Salting a wound or sugaring a pill: The pragmatic functions of ironic criticism
Recent investigations of the pragmatic functions of ironic criticism (e.g., saying “Nice shot” to condemn a fellow player for missing a free throw and losing a basketball game) have argued that ironic criticism is used to dilute condemnation. Dews and Winner (1995) and Dews, Kaplan, and Winner (1995) showed that, relative to literal criticism (e.g., Terrible shot”), ironic criticism expresses less condemnation. This article reports the results of…
Analogy and Irony: Rebuttal to "Rebuttal Analogy"
A recent theoretical note published in Metaphor and Symbolic Activity (Whaley & Holloway, 1996) argued for a distinction between analogies used for persuasion, or rebuttal analogies, and standard forms of analogy such as explanatory or expressive ones (Gentner, 1982, 1983). Whaley and Holloway proposed that two characteristics distinguish rebuttal analogies--argument and social attack. In this article, we take up these claims concerning rebuttal …
You'll Never Believe This: Irony and Hyperbole in Expressing Surprise
The Pragmatic Functions of Rebuttal Analogy
Rebuttal analogy takes the form, "Doing X is like doing Y" (e.g., "Choosing to burn fossil fuels instead of developing solar power is like volunteering to urinate in your drinking water"). It has two pragmatic functions: an argument and social attack against X and its advocates (Whaley & Holloway, 1996). The analogy's base level of irony can be controlled by a speaker. This study investigates whether this variation in irony provides speakers with…
Not good” is “bad,” but “not bad” is not “good”: An analysis of three accounts of negation asymmetry
This study evaluated 3 explanations for why speakers would opt for relatively complex negated forms in expressions when simpler direct forms are available. The results of 4 experiments on 104 participants revealed that events expected to turn out positively produce an asymmetry of negation: A direct negative term has the same meaning as a negated positive term, but a direct positive term does not have the same meaning as a negated negative term. …
On necessary conditions for verbal irony comprehension
The conditions for verbal irony comprehension implicitly or directly claimed as necessary by all of the recent philosophic, linguistic and psycholinguistic theories of verbal irony (Clark and Gerrig 1984; Kreuz and Glucksberg 1989; Kumon-Nakamura, Glucksberg and Brown 1995; Sperber and Wilson 1981, 1986) were experimentally tested. Allusion to a violation of expectations, predictions, desires, preferences, social norms, etc., was confirmed as a n…
Contrast of Kind Versus Contrast of Magnitude: The Pragmatic Accomplishments of Irony and Hyperbole
Verbal irony (e.g., "This is wonderful") and hyperbole (e.g., "This is the worst luck ever") perform pragmatic functions because they create contrasts between expected and ensuing events. Verbal irony uses contrasts of kind because positive comments are made about negative situations. Hyperbole uses contrasts of magnitude because very negative comments are made about moderately negative situations. This study assessed whether this difference enab…
Comprehending Speaker Intent in Rebuttal Analogy Use: The Role of Irony Mapping, Absurdity Comparison and Argumentative Convention
Rebuttal analogies (e.g., “Politicians arguing over the renaming of an airport is like watering your petunias when your house is on fire”) are commonly used as responses in verbal conflicts. The following study investigated the role that irony mapping, absurdity comparison, and argumentative convention play in interpreters' derivations of speaker`s intentions in using rebuttal analogies. In general, these intentions are to demonstrate the unsound…
Contrast and pragmatics in figurative language: Anything understatement can do, irony can do better
A proverb in mind: The cognitive science of proverbial wit and wisdom
Dewey Defeats Truman: Interpreting Ironic Restatement
When a speaker restates another person's inaccurate remark, for example, "Sure, Ronald Reagan was president during the 1970's," he or she runs a risk of being misunderstood-people might understand the response as verbal irony, but they also could readily interpret it literally. This study investigated an Ironic Implicature Hypothesis that speakers opt for this form of verbal irony because of the unique pragmatic functions it performs. The hypothe…
Figurative Language Development Research and Popular Children's Literature: Why We Should Know, "Where the Wild Things Are"
Concerns have arisen recently over the ecological validity of materials used to study children's figurative language comprehension abilities. Materials commonly used in studies that evaluate children's comprehension of metaphorical language, for instance, are not as frequently found in popular children's literature (Broderick, 1992). In the following study, we first present arguments against the basis for this concern over ecological validity, bu…
Are Irony and Metaphor Understood Differently
In 4 experiments we examined differences in how people understand ironic and metaphoric statements. Our hypothesis was that irony requires more complex inferencing to understand than does metaphor because irony reflects speakers' second-order, metarepresentational thoughts. We investigated the implications of this idea for how people process identical statements (e.g., "This one's really sharp") that had either ironic or metaphoric meaning in dif…
Gender Differences in Verbal Irony Use
Potential causes of gender differences in perceived and reported verbal irony use are investigated. The study first presented written scenarios of speakers with indeterminate gender who made sarcastic comments. These speakers are judged to be more likely male than female, by both male and female participants. In a separate task, male participants also report a greater likelihood of using verbal irony relative to female participants. The study the…
Interpreting Figurative Meaning
Interpreting Figurative Meaning critically evaluates the recent empirical work from psycholinguistics and neuroscience examining the successes and difficulties associated with interpreting figurative language. There is now a huge, often contradictory literature on how people understand figures of speech. Gibbs and Colston argue that there may not be a single theory or model that adequately explains both the processes and products of figurative me…
Where is the humor in verbal irony
Irony is often related to humor, both in spoken and written language. One possibility is that humor arises once people reconcile the incongruity between what speakers say and imply when using irony. Humor automatically emerges in these cases given the release of tension following a momentary sense of disparity. Our claim is that this proposal does not capture many of the dynamic complexities in real-world ironic discourse. We describe psychologic…
“… If We Look Slightly Askance, We See it All”
I am pleased to receive the reigns of Metaphor and Symbol from Ray Gibbs, who has served as Editor for no less than 19 years. Ray has guided the journal successfully over this time, an era of great
Figurative language development/acquisition research: Status and ways forward
Back to the Poem: A Call for A Special Issue on the Poetics of Metaphor
On January 1, 2020, I (the first author), started my term as the new Editor in Chief of Metaphor and Symbol. I wanted to inaugurate that moment with a short editorial piece in the journal seeking t
Measurement matters: An afterword on current challenges in metaphor research
Researchers studying metaphor, as a human artifact, as a thing we use in communicating and expression, as an ability we acquire, as a seemingly fundamental process in human embodied cognition, and in other guises, face many methodological hurdles. This article considers several categories of such challenges, and with reference to and in partnership with the other articles in this special issue, seeks to suggest some means of overcoming or at leas…
On Poetry and the Science(s) of Meaning
Psychology (27 works) · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition (26 works) · Linguistics (22 works) · Philosophy (21 works) · Irony (13 works) · Cognitive psychology (8 works) · Cognitive science (8 works) · Computer Science (8 works) · Metaphor (8 works) · Social Psychology (8 works)