L2 Learners’ Stylistic Penchant and Perceived Aptness For Metaphors and Similes

Aptness, defined as how the vehicle is well able to cover the salient features of thetenor (e.g., oil is like liquid gold vs. a train is like a worm), is claimed to be animportant factor in the preference for metaphors over similes, or vice versa. thisstudy was an attempt to test for the supposed correlation between the perceiveddegree of aptness and a priori stylistic preference for metaphors and similes byiranian l2 learners. participants, aged 20-25, were selected from 80 efl translationundergraduates. in the first place, they were asked to read 2 alternative lists of thesame sentences (lists a and b) and to rate each sentence as to its appropriateness byfilling in a number between 2 endpoints of 1 (very inappropriate) and 7 (veryappropriate). in the second place, they were invited to consider the 2 alternativeforms of the same sentence and to say which one they preferred: the metaphor or thesimile form. results revealed no such strong or moderate relationship between theperceived mean aptness ratings and the mean preference scores for the simile andmetaphor versions (r = -0.014 for the metaphors; r = 0.014 for the similes). allthings considered, the perceived degree of aptness failed to predict the stylisticpreference for metaphors and similes. this comes to the rejection of the validity ofthe claim put forth by chiappe and kennedy (1999) regarding the predictive powerof aptness to inform the preference of metaphors and similes by iranian l2 learners.