Event-Related Potential Evidence for First and Second Language Metaphor Processing: A Comparative Study of Native English and Urdu-English Bilingual Speakers

Abstract

Understanding figurative language is a complex cognitive process that requires the integration of linguistic, semantic, and contextual information. This study investigates the event-related potential (ERP) correlates of metaphor processing in first language (L1) and second language (L2) English by comparing proficient Urdu–English bilinguals with native English speakers. The research is grounded in Bowdle and Gentner's (2005) Career of Metaphor theory, Giora's (1997) Graded Salience Hypothesis, and psycholinguistic ERP methodologies established by Kutas and Hillyard (1980). A total of 48 participants, comprising 24 native English speakers and 24 proficient L1 Urdu speakers using English as their L2, completed a sentence-reading experiment while electroencephalography (EEG) data were recorded. Experimental stimuli consisted of carefully matched literal sentences, conventional metaphors, and novel metaphors, enabling direct comparison of neural responses across figurative and literal language conditions. ERP analyses focused primarily on the N400 component, associated with semantic integration, and the Late Positive Component (LPC), reflecting later interpretive and integrative processes. Results indicated that native English speakers demonstrated the expected increase in N400 amplitude for novel metaphors, followed by a robust LPC, suggesting efficient semantic integration and metaphor-to-analogy mapping. In contrast, L2 participants exhibited significantly enhanced and prolonged N400 responses to novel metaphors, accompanied by weaker LPC effects, indicating greater processing difficulty, reduced automatic access to figurative meaning, and increased reliance on controlled cognitive strategies. Notably, conventional metaphors elicited comparable N400 responses across both groups, supporting the Graded Salience Hypothesis that lexical salience, rather than literality alone, determines the earliest stages of semantic processing. These findings provide neurocognitive evidence that while highly proficient bilinguals process familiar figurative expressions similarly to native speakers, novel metaphor comprehension continues to impose additional cognitive demands. The study contributes to psycholinguistic theories of bilingual figurative language processing and offers pedagogical implications for developing metaphor competence in second language instruction through increased exposure to authentic figurative language and context-rich learning experiences.