| Acknowledgements | 第1-8页 |
| List of Tables and Figures | 第8-10页 |
| Abstract | 第10-12页 |
| 摘要 | 第12-13页 |
| Chapter One Introduction | 第13-16页 |
| ·Research Orientation | 第13页 |
| ·Rationale for the Research | 第13-14页 |
| ·Organization of the Thesis | 第14-16页 |
| Chapter Two Previous Studies on Metaphor Comprehension | 第16-31页 |
| ·Introduction | 第16-17页 |
| ·Comparison Models | 第17-22页 |
| ·Pure matching models | 第17-20页 |
| ·Alignment-first models | 第20-22页 |
| ·Categorization Models | 第22-26页 |
| ·The Career of Metaphor | 第26-28页 |
| ·Research on Comprehension of Chinese Metaphors | 第28-29页 |
| ·Limitations of Previous Studies | 第29-31页 |
| Chapter Three Research Question, Hypothesis and Method | 第31-48页 |
| ·Research Question and Hypothesis | 第31-32页 |
| ·Method | 第32-47页 |
| ·Subjects | 第33页 |
| ·Materials | 第33-41页 |
| ·A survey on the acceptability of metaphor sentences | 第33-34页 |
| ·Common property generation | 第34-35页 |
| ·A Survey on the conventionality of vehicles | 第35-36页 |
| ·A survey on the familiarity of topics and vehicles | 第36页 |
| ·A Survey on similarity of metaphor sentences | 第36页 |
| ·Matching of materials | 第36-41页 |
| ·Research design and apparatus | 第41-42页 |
| ·Procedure | 第42-47页 |
| ·Structure of the E-Prime experiment | 第42-46页 |
| ·Field experiment | 第46-47页 |
| ·Statistic Measures | 第47-48页 |
| Chapter Four Results and Discussion | 第48-58页 |
| ·Results of Groups 1-3 and Discussion | 第48-50页 |
| ·Results of Groups 4-6 and Discussion | 第50-52页 |
| ·Results of Groups 7-9 and Discussion | 第52-54页 |
| ·Results of Groups 10-12 and Discussion | 第54-56页 |
| ·Summary | 第56-58页 |
| Chapter Five Conclusion | 第58-65页 |
| ·Major Findings | 第58-60页 |
| ·Implications | 第60-63页 |
| ·Comprehension of Chinese metaphors | 第60页 |
| ·Effects of vehicle conventionality in Chinese metaphor comprehension | 第60-61页 |
| ·A unified processing model for metaphor comprehension | 第61-62页 |
| ·Metaphor and polysemy | 第62-63页 |
| ·Limitations | 第63-65页 |
| References | 第65-69页 |
| Appendix A A Survey on Acceptability of Chinese Metaphor Sentences | 第69-70页 |
| Appendix B A Survey on Conventional Properties of Vehicles in Chinese Metaphor Sentences | 第70-71页 |
| Appendix C A Survey on Conventionality of Vehicles in Chinese Metaphor Sentences | 第71-72页 |
| Appendix D A Survey on Familiarity of Two-Character Phrases | 第72-73页 |
| Appendix E A Survey on Similarity of Chinese Metaphor Sentences | 第73-74页 |
| Appendix F Data on Acceptability of Metaphor Sentences | 第74-80页 |
| Appendix G Data on Conventionality of Vehicles in Chinese Metaphor Sentences | 第80-85页 |
| Appendix H1 Data on Familiarity of Two-Character Phrases (Primes: topics) | 第85-90页 |
| Appendix H2 Data on Familiarity of Two-Character Phrases (Primes: vehicles) | 第90-95页 |
| Appendix I Data on Similarity of Metaphor Sentences | 第95-100页 |
| Appendix J Twelve Matched Experimental Groups | 第100-103页 |
| Appendix K Filler Sentences for Twelve Matched Experimental Groups | 第103-104页 |
| Appendix L Mean RTs of the Twelve Matched Groups for the 52 Participants | 第104-105页 |
