Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T21:33:48.907Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Attribute saliency and metaphor interpretation in school-age children*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Mary Ann Evans  and
Dianna Lynn Gamble
Mary Ann Evans*
Affiliation:
University of Guelph
Dianna Lynn Gamble
Affiliation:
University of Guelph
*
Department of Psychology, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario N1G 2W1, Canada.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The present investigation examined the relationship between attribute saliency and metaphor interpretation in school children. Ortony's theory that metaphors entail salience imbalance prompted the generation of two types of metaphors, PREDICATE-PROMOTING (PP) and PREDICATE-INTRODUCING (PI) metaphors. An adult sample was used to select metaphors of each type which were then presented to 24 children in each of grades three, five, and seven (mean ages 8; 5, 10; 6 and 12; 8). The children were asked to generate attribute lists for TOPIC and VEHICLE terms and, six weeks later, to verbally explain metaphors containing those terms. Older children correctly interpreted more metaphors than younger children, and at each grade level no difference was observed between the number of correct interpretations of PP and PI metaphors. In addition, at all grade levels the incorrect ground of each child's interpretation errors most often had been listed in his/her attribute lists. This suggests that attribute saliency for the individual perceiving the metaphor plays a key role in the interpretation process.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , June 1988 , pp. 435 - 449
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Grateful acknowledgement is extended to the Board of Education involved and to the teachers and children who so generously accommodated us in their classroom time.

References

REFERENCES

Al-Issa, I. (1969). The development of word definitions in children. Journal of Genetic Psychology 114. 25–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anglin, J. M. (1977). Word, object and conceptual development. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Anglin, J. M. (1985). The child's expressible knowledge of word concepts. In Nelson, K. E. (ed.), Children's language. Vol. 5. Hillsdale NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Billow, R. (1975). A cognitive developmental study of metaphoric comprehension. Developmental Psychology 11. 415–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bloom, L. (1973). One word at a time. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Bowerman, M. (1978). The acquisition of word meaning: an investigation of some current conflicts. In Waterson, N. & Snow, C. (eds), The development of communication. Chichester: Wiley.Google Scholar
Carbonell, J. & Minton, S. (1983). Metaphor and common sense reasoning. Pittsburgh: Carnegie-Mellon University.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cicione, M., Gardner, H. & Winner, E. (1981). Understanding the psychology in psychological metaphors. Journal of Child Language 8. 213–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, E. (1973). What's in a word? On the child's acquisition of semantics in his first language. In Moore, T. (ed.), Cognitive development and the acquisition of language. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Feifel, H. & Lorge, I. (1950). Quantitative differences in vocabular responses of children. Journal of Educational Psychology 41. 1–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gardner, H., Winner, E., Bechhofer, R. & Wolf, D. (1978). The development of figurative language. In Nelson, K. (ed.), Children's language. Vol. 1. New York: Gardner Press.Google Scholar
Gentner, D. (1982). A structure-mapping approach to analogy and metaphor. Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Ann Arbor, Michigan.Google Scholar
Johnson, M. & Malgady, R. (1979). Some cognitive aspects of figurative language: association and metaphor. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 8. 249–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Katz, A. (1982). Metaphoric relationships: the role of feature saliency. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 11. 283–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keil, F. & Batterman, N. (1984). A characteristic-to-defining shift in the development of word meaning. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 23. 221–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Litowitz, B. (1977). Learning to make definitions. Journal of Child Language 4. 289–304.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lovett, M. (1983). The development of figurative language skill in normal and language-impaired children. Unpublished manuscript. Division of Neurology, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto.Google Scholar
McNamara, T. & Sternberg, R. (1983). Mental models of word meaning. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 22. 449–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nelson, K. & Kosslyn, S. (1975). Semantic retrieval in children and adults. Developmental Psychology 6. 807–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nippold, M., Leonard, L. & Kail, R. (1984). Syntactic and conceptual factors in children's understanding of metaphors. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 27. 197–205.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Norlin, P. F. (1981). The development of relational arcs in the lexical semantic memory structures of young children. Journal of Child Language 8. 385–402.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ortony, A. (1979). Beyond literal similarity. Psychological Review 86. 161–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ortony, A., Reynolds, R. & Arter, J. (1978). Metaphor: theoretical and empirical research. Psychological Bulletin 85. 919–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pollio, H. & Pollio, M. (1979). A test of metaphoric comprehesion and some preliminary developmental data. Journal of Child Language 6. 111–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Readance, J., Baldwin, R. W., Martin, M. & O'Brien, D. (1984). Metaphorical interpretations: an investigation of the salience imbalance hypothesis. Journal of Educational Psychology 76. 659–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richards, I. (1936). The philosophy of rhetoric. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Silberstein, L., Gardner, H., Phelps, E. & Winner, E. (1982). Autumn leaves and old photographs: the development of metaphor preferences. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 34. 135–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tversky, A. (1977). Features of similarity. Psychological Review 84. 327–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vosniadou, S. & Ortony, A. (1983). The emergence of the literal-metaphorical-anomalous distinction in young children. Child Development 54. 154–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Winner, E., Engel, M. & Gardner, H. (1980). Misunderstanding metaphors: what's the problem? Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 30. 22–32.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Winner, E., Rosenstiel, A. & Gardner, H. (1976). The development of metaphoric understanding. Developmental Psychology 12. 289–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar