科學文本的隱喻使用與讀者理解初探

Abstract

本研究的目的在探討在科學文本中使用隱喻是否能夠提高讀者對科學文本內容的理解。一般的科學文本旨在用精確的文字表達準確的科學概念，因此一般的文學修辭手法不被建議在科學文本中使用。傳統上，隱喻被視為一種文學的修辭方法，但在科學論述當中卻不乏隱喻的使用。本研究以33位台中大明中學的高中(職)學生為受試者，以受試者內實驗設計，使每個學生閱讀4篇改寫自科學雜誌上的科學報導，四篇中兩篇閱讀的文本中含有與文本內容相關的隱喻，另兩篇則不含隱喻。在閱讀每一篇報導之後，受試學生在實驗者指示下盡可能地寫出還記得的報導內容。分別讀完四篇報導以及完成自由回憶的步驟之後，受試者必須接受本研究自行編製的閱讀理解測驗。在資料分析讀者自由回憶語文內容的單位的部分，本研究是以Kintsch(1988)命題分析中的巨觀命題作為分析的單位。在分析了受試者自由回憶的語文內容後，發現在科學文本中使用隱喻對讀者提高對科學報導內容的正確回憶量造成了顯著的影響、並對讀者錯誤的回憶量的減低造成了顯著影響。在此同時，隱喻也能夠提高讀者對科學文本內容整體性的理解，顯示隱喻的適當使用的確可以提昇讀者在閱讀科學文本時的理解。而在閱讀理解測驗方面，雖然受試者閱讀使用隱喻報導的平均分數略高於受試者閱讀不含隱喻的科學報導，但是並沒有統計上的顯著差異。因此本研究認為，隱喻具有為讀者聯結長期記憶的功能，並能幫助讀者以其自有的知識體系來理解新的科學知識或訊息的功能。

The purpose of this research is to examine whether relevant use of metaphor in science texts will contribute to a reading comprehension enhancement of readers. Generally speaking, one of the major purposes of technical writings is to use precise words and expressions to convey accurate science concepts that allow readers of those texts to obtain correct science information. Based on this major purpose, literal rhetoric usages like metaphor are not recommended to adopt as parts of technical writings. Metaphor is traditionally regarded as the most important literal rhetoric skill that usually associates words and phrases to metaphorical meanings that are beyond or different from the literal ones. However, metaphor is often seen in science discourse and technical writings. To pursuit our research purpose, thirty-three students from Ta Ming high school in Taichung County participated in the within-subject experiment of this research. During the experiment, all students have to read four science reports that are adapted from different science magazines. Each of the four science reports has two versions—the “with-metaphor” and the “without-metaphor” version. The “with-metaphor” version is identical with the “without-metaphor” version except that there was an additional metaphor sentence in the with-metaphor version at the first paragraph. Among the four science reports, two were reports with-metaphor, and two were reports without-metaphor. Which two science reports were with metaphors were chosen randomly for each student. After reading each science report, the students were asked to write down every single detail they still remembered about the reports they had just read. The procedure repeated until four science reports were completed. At the end of the experiment, the students were asked to take a reading comprehension test constructed by the experimenter with sixteen signal option questions in it. Although reading comprehension test fail to show any effect of metaphor on reading comprehension, the macroproposition we obtained from students’ recall protocols showed that science articles that contained metaphor in the text indeed enhanced students’ text comprehension. Specifically, there were significant main effects of metaphor on the recall of correct macropropostion and situation model. Furthermore, the main effect of metaphor was also significant on the incorrect macropropositions. Based on those results, we concluded that inclusion of a relevant metaphor may enhance reading comprehension of science texts.