二语习得研究中的一个重大问题是解释学习者如何习得经验中没有的知识。学习者没有见过的新隐喻提供了研究这个问题的一个理想案例。潜伏语义分析理论预测,隐喻的意义,是读者能够从对本体和喻体的知识中导出的。本研究的实验检测了这一预测,实验结果与潜伏语义分析的预测一致,表明:如果学习者知道本体和喻体的特性,他就能够得出隐喻的意义。本研究对知识习得的问题提供了一个回答。 A major problem in second language acquisition studies is explaining how learners acquire knowledge that is not experienced. The new metaphor that learners have not seen before provides an ideal case study of this problem. Latent semantic analysis theory predicts that the meaning of metaphor is that the reader can derive from the knowledge of the ontology and the metaphor. The experiments in this study examine this prediction. The experimental results are consistent with the prediction of latent semantic analysis, which shows that learners can derive metaphorical meanings if they know the characteristics of ontology and metaphor. This study provides an answer to the question of knowledge acquisition.