Marianna Bolognesi
Biographic Data
| ID | 970843 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Marianna Bolognesi |
| GIVEN NAMES | Marianna |
| FAMILY NAME | Bolognesi |
| SIGNATURE | BOLOGNESI M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Bologna |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3292-8968 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 12 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 20 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2018 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Metaphor and multisensoriality drive appreciation in print advertising
The use of metaphors, whether linguistic or visual, has been shown to enhance advertisement effectiveness, and sensory marketing research highlights the positive effects of appealing to consumers’ sensory perception. Synaesthetic metaphors, which involve metaphor and sensory experiences, are ideal for studying the effects of both metaphor and (multi)sensory cues in advertisements. We experimentally tested the hypothesis that the presence of (ling…
What we mean when we say semantic
Tulving characterized semantic memory as a vast repository of meaning that underlies language and many other cognitive processes. This perspective on lexical and conceptual knowledge galvanized a new era of research undertaken by numerous fields, each with their own idiosyncratic methods and terminology. For example, “concept” has different meanings in philosophy, linguistics, and psychology. As such, many fundamental constructs used to delineate…
Abstractness impacts conversational dynamics
Conversation topics may vary in abstractness. This might impact the effort required by speakers to reach a common ground and, ultimately, an interactive alignment. In fact, people typically feel less confident with abstract concepts and single-words rating studies suggest abstract concepts are more associated with social interactions than concrete concepts-hence suggesting increasing levels of abstractness enhance inner and mutual monitoring proc…
The semantic content of concrete, abstract, specific, and generic concepts
ion processes involve two variables that are often confused with one another: concreteness ( banana versus belief ) and specificity ( chair versus furniture or Buddhism versus religion ). Researchers are investigating the relationship between them, but many questions remain open, such as: What type of semantics characterizes words with varying degrees of concreteness and specificity? We tackle this topic through an in-depth semantic analysis of 1…
What makes an awfully good oxymoron
Oxymorons combine two opposite terms in a paradoxical manner. They are closely intertwined with antonymy, since the union of antonymous items creates the paradoxical effect of the oxymoron and generates a new meaning. Compared to other forms of figurative language, oxymorons are largely underinvestigated. We explored what makes good oxymorons through a crowdsourcing task in which we asked participants to judge the acceptability, comprehensibility…
The Influence of Metaphorical Framing on Emotions and Reasoning About the Covid-19 Pandemic
Metaphors can provide a conceptual framework for understanding complex topics and as such, they have frequently been used in COVID-19 discourse. As previous research indicates that conceptual metaphors can influence how people reason about complex topics, the metaphors used to communicate about the pandemic can influence how it is understood and how people respond. This paper investigates the influence of metaphorical framing on emotions and reas…
The advantages of gamification for collecting linguistic data
This paper delves into the integration of gamification techniques within the field of linguistics to enhance data collection for academic research purposes. Through an exploration of the Word Ladders mobile application, designed to elicit hierarchical word associations and therefore linguistic data, the study investigates the potential benefits of gamification in terms of data quality, user experience, and motivation in taking part to the researc…
Attention to the source domain of conventional metaphorical expressions
This study investigates whether the metaphorical status of conventional expressions can be reactivated when elements of the source domain are present in the context. In indirect metaphors the source domain (or literal meaning) is not expressed (e.g., The father cut the budget). The literal meaning of cutting remains latently encoded in the predicate and readers' attention is not required to move from the finance domain to the domain of physical c…
Comprehension of different types of novel metaphors in monolinguals and multilinguals
It has been suggested that multilingualism can lead to increased cognitive flexibility and creativity. No studies to date, however, have investigated whether this advantage leads to a greater propensity to find meaning in different kinds of novel metaphors. This article reports a self-paced reading study that focuses on whether such an increased propensity is displayed by multilingual English speakers, as opposed to monolingual English speakers. …
Creativity is a Toaster
This article investigates the connection between multilingual experiences and creative metaphoric competence. As multilingualism has been shownto bring cognitive advantages in creative thinking, this article explores whether the ability to interpret creative metaphors differs in participants with less versus more multilingual experience. The results of a self-paced reading study combined with a sensicality judgment showed that people with less ve…
Covid-19 Discourse on Twitter
The words we use to talk about the current epidemiological crisis on social media can inform us on how we are conceptualizing the pandemic and how we are reacting to its development. This paper provides an extensive explorative analysis of how the discourse about Covid-19 reported on Twitter changes through time, focusing on the first wave of this pandemic. Based on an extensive corpus of tweets (produced between 20th March and 1st July 2020) fir…
Processing of literal and metaphorical meanings in polysemous verbs
The status of conventional metaphorical meaning in the L2 lexicon
This paper investigates how L2 speakers of English process conventional metaphorical expressions. While much of the literature on L2 processing of figurative expressions focuses on idioms only, the aim of this paper is to investigate how L2 speakers process conventional metaphorical expressions. The results of a cross-modal semantic priming task show that conventional metaphors have a special status in comparison to literal language in the L2 lex…
The linguistic dimensions of concrete and abstract concepts
The distinction between abstract and concrete concepts is fundamental to cognitive linguistics and cognitive science. This distinction is commonly operationalized through concreteness ratings based on the aggregated judgments of many people. What is often overlooked in experimental studies using this operationalization is that ratings are attributed to words , not to concepts directly. In this paper we explore the relationship between the linguis…
Framing Covid-19
Doctors and nurses in these weeks and months are busy in the trenches, fighting against a new invisible enemy: Covid-19. Cities are locked down and civilians are besieged in their own homes, to prevent the spreading of the virus. War-related terminology is commonly used to frame the discourse around epidemics and diseases. The discourse around the current epidemic makes use of war-related metaphors too, not only in public discourse and in the med…
Cross-cultural interpretation of filmic metaphors
The purpose of this study is to investigate how viewers who speak different languages interpret cinematographic metaphors in a filmic advertisement. The study is organized in three parts: First, we offer a theoretical model that predicts the offline mental mechanisms that occur while people interpret filmic metaphors, based on an existing model of visual metaphor processing. Second, we evaluate the model in a think-aloud retrospective task. A TV-…
Imago Dei
This article presents an exploratory analysis of the metaphoric structure of five artistic paintings within “Think aloud” protocols, in which a group of 14 English speakers with a low self-rated level of expertise in art and history of art expertise were asked to verbalize all their thoughts, ideas and impressions of the artworks. The main findings of this study can be summarized as follows: (1) multiple interpretations for the same artwork are p…
Bringing metaphors back to the streets
Research on (verbo-)pictorial metaphors and other rhetorical figures is primarily focused on the genre of advertising, leaving other genres under-investigated. In this study, the authors focus on street art, a visually perceived cross-cultural medium used to address sociopolitical issues. This genre typically combines two interacting semiotic systems – language and depiction – and is thus a form of polysemiotic communication. Their analysis is ba…
How abstract concepts emerge from metaphorical images
How language and image construct synaesthetic metaphors in print advertising
Research in (multi-)sensory marketing suggests that engaging consumers’ senses is an efficient way to create effective advertisements. In this study, the authors explore how sensory cues are used in print advertising. In particular, they identify and describe print advertisements featuring instances of synaesthesia, that is, a metaphor by which properties of a given sensory modality are attributed to a concept that relates primarily to a differen…
How language and image construct synaesthetic metaphors in print advertising
Research in (multi-)sensory marketing suggests that engaging consumers’ senses is an efficient way to create effective advertisements. In this study, the authors explore how sensory cues are used in print advertising. In particular, they identify and describe print advertisements featuring instances of synaesthesia, that is, a metaphor by which properties of a given sensory modality are attributed to a concept that relates primarily to a differen…
The linguistic dimensions of concrete and abstract concepts
The distinction between abstract and concrete concepts is fundamental to cognitive linguistics and cognitive science. This distinction is commonly operationalized through concreteness ratings based on the aggregated judgments of many people. What is often overlooked in experimental studies using this operationalization is that ratings are attributed to words , not to concepts directly. In this paper we explore the relationship between the linguis…
Bringing metaphors back to the streets
Research on (verbo-)pictorial metaphors and other rhetorical figures is primarily focused on the genre of advertising, leaving other genres under-investigated. In this study, the authors focus on street art, a visually perceived cross-cultural medium used to address sociopolitical issues. This genre typically combines two interacting semiotic systems – language and depiction – and is thus a form of polysemiotic communication. Their analysis is ba…
How abstract concepts emerge from metaphorical images
The status of conventional metaphorical meaning in the L2 lexicon
This paper investigates how L2 speakers of English process conventional metaphorical expressions. While much of the literature on L2 processing of figurative expressions focuses on idioms only, the aim of this paper is to investigate how L2 speakers process conventional metaphorical expressions. The results of a cross-modal semantic priming task show that conventional metaphors have a special status in comparison to literal language in the L2 lex…
Cross-cultural interpretation of filmic metaphors
The purpose of this study is to investigate how viewers who speak different languages interpret cinematographic metaphors in a filmic advertisement. The study is organized in three parts: First, we offer a theoretical model that predicts the offline mental mechanisms that occur while people interpret filmic metaphors, based on an existing model of visual metaphor processing. Second, we evaluate the model in a think-aloud retrospective task. A TV-…
How language and image construct synaesthetic metaphors in print advertising
Research in (multi-)sensory marketing suggests that engaging consumers’ senses is an efficient way to create effective advertisements. In this study, the authors explore how sensory cues are used in print advertising. In particular, they identify and describe print advertisements featuring instances of synaesthesia, that is, a metaphor by which properties of a given sensory modality are attributed to a concept that relates primarily to a differen…
Bringing metaphors back to the streets
Research on (verbo-)pictorial metaphors and other rhetorical figures is primarily focused on the genre of advertising, leaving other genres under-investigated. In this study, the authors focus on street art, a visually perceived cross-cultural medium used to address sociopolitical issues. This genre typically combines two interacting semiotic systems – language and depiction – and is thus a form of polysemiotic communication. Their analysis is ba…
How abstract concepts emerge from metaphorical images
Framing Covid-19
Doctors and nurses in these weeks and months are busy in the trenches, fighting against a new invisible enemy: Covid-19. Cities are locked down and civilians are besieged in their own homes, to prevent the spreading of the virus. War-related terminology is commonly used to frame the discourse around epidemics and diseases. The discourse around the current epidemic makes use of war-related metaphors too, not only in public discourse and in the med…
Cross-cultural interpretation of filmic metaphors
The purpose of this study is to investigate how viewers who speak different languages interpret cinematographic metaphors in a filmic advertisement. The study is organized in three parts: First, we offer a theoretical model that predicts the offline mental mechanisms that occur while people interpret filmic metaphors, based on an existing model of visual metaphor processing. Second, we evaluate the model in a think-aloud retrospective task. A TV-…
Imago Dei
This article presents an exploratory analysis of the metaphoric structure of five artistic paintings within “Think aloud” protocols, in which a group of 14 English speakers with a low self-rated level of expertise in art and history of art expertise were asked to verbalize all their thoughts, ideas and impressions of the artworks. The main findings of this study can be summarized as follows: (1) multiple interpretations for the same artwork are p…
Creativity is a Toaster
This article investigates the connection between multilingual experiences and creative metaphoric competence. As multilingualism has been shownto bring cognitive advantages in creative thinking, this article explores whether the ability to interpret creative metaphors differs in participants with less versus more multilingual experience. The results of a self-paced reading study combined with a sensicality judgment showed that people with less ve…
Covid-19 Discourse on Twitter
The words we use to talk about the current epidemiological crisis on social media can inform us on how we are conceptualizing the pandemic and how we are reacting to its development. This paper provides an extensive explorative analysis of how the discourse about Covid-19 reported on Twitter changes through time, focusing on the first wave of this pandemic. Based on an extensive corpus of tweets (produced between 20th March and 1st July 2020) fir…
Processing of literal and metaphorical meanings in polysemous verbs
The status of conventional metaphorical meaning in the L2 lexicon
This paper investigates how L2 speakers of English process conventional metaphorical expressions. While much of the literature on L2 processing of figurative expressions focuses on idioms only, the aim of this paper is to investigate how L2 speakers process conventional metaphorical expressions. The results of a cross-modal semantic priming task show that conventional metaphors have a special status in comparison to literal language in the L2 lex…
The linguistic dimensions of concrete and abstract concepts
The distinction between abstract and concrete concepts is fundamental to cognitive linguistics and cognitive science. This distinction is commonly operationalized through concreteness ratings based on the aggregated judgments of many people. What is often overlooked in experimental studies using this operationalization is that ratings are attributed to words , not to concepts directly. In this paper we explore the relationship between the linguis…
Comprehension of different types of novel metaphors in monolinguals and multilinguals
It has been suggested that multilingualism can lead to increased cognitive flexibility and creativity. No studies to date, however, have investigated whether this advantage leads to a greater propensity to find meaning in different kinds of novel metaphors. This article reports a self-paced reading study that focuses on whether such an increased propensity is displayed by multilingual English speakers, as opposed to monolingual English speakers. …
Attention to the source domain of conventional metaphorical expressions
This study investigates whether the metaphorical status of conventional expressions can be reactivated when elements of the source domain are present in the context. In indirect metaphors the source domain (or literal meaning) is not expressed (e.g., The father cut the budget). The literal meaning of cutting remains latently encoded in the predicate and readers' attention is not required to move from the finance domain to the domain of physical c…
The semantic content of concrete, abstract, specific, and generic concepts
ion processes involve two variables that are often confused with one another: concreteness ( banana versus belief ) and specificity ( chair versus furniture or Buddhism versus religion ). Researchers are investigating the relationship between them, but many questions remain open, such as: What type of semantics characterizes words with varying degrees of concreteness and specificity? We tackle this topic through an in-depth semantic analysis of 1…
What makes an awfully good oxymoron
Oxymorons combine two opposite terms in a paradoxical manner. They are closely intertwined with antonymy, since the union of antonymous items creates the paradoxical effect of the oxymoron and generates a new meaning. Compared to other forms of figurative language, oxymorons are largely underinvestigated. We explored what makes good oxymorons through a crowdsourcing task in which we asked participants to judge the acceptability, comprehensibility…
The Influence of Metaphorical Framing on Emotions and Reasoning About the Covid-19 Pandemic
Metaphors can provide a conceptual framework for understanding complex topics and as such, they have frequently been used in COVID-19 discourse. As previous research indicates that conceptual metaphors can influence how people reason about complex topics, the metaphors used to communicate about the pandemic can influence how it is understood and how people respond. This paper investigates the influence of metaphorical framing on emotions and reas…
The advantages of gamification for collecting linguistic data
This paper delves into the integration of gamification techniques within the field of linguistics to enhance data collection for academic research purposes. Through an exploration of the Word Ladders mobile application, designed to elicit hierarchical word associations and therefore linguistic data, the study investigates the potential benefits of gamification in terms of data quality, user experience, and motivation in taking part to the researc…
What we mean when we say semantic
Tulving characterized semantic memory as a vast repository of meaning that underlies language and many other cognitive processes. This perspective on lexical and conceptual knowledge galvanized a new era of research undertaken by numerous fields, each with their own idiosyncratic methods and terminology. For example, “concept” has different meanings in philosophy, linguistics, and psychology. As such, many fundamental constructs used to delineate…
Abstractness impacts conversational dynamics
Conversation topics may vary in abstractness. This might impact the effort required by speakers to reach a common ground and, ultimately, an interactive alignment. In fact, people typically feel less confident with abstract concepts and single-words rating studies suggest abstract concepts are more associated with social interactions than concrete concepts-hence suggesting increasing levels of abstractness enhance inner and mutual monitoring proc…
Metaphor and multisensoriality drive appreciation in print advertising
The use of metaphors, whether linguistic or visual, has been shown to enhance advertisement effectiveness, and sensory marketing research highlights the positive effects of appealing to consumers’ sensory perception. Synaesthetic metaphors, which involve metaphor and sensory experiences, are ideal for studying the effects of both metaphor and (multi)sensory cues in advertisements. We experimentally tested the hypothesis that the presence of (ling…
Psychology (18 works) · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition (16 works) · Linguistics (16 works) · Cognitive psychology (13 works) · Computer Science (12 works) · Metaphor (12 works) · Philosophy (11 works) · Cognition (9 works) · Literal and figurative language (7 works) · Epistemology (6 works)