Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-04T20:19:48.115Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

How children understand idioms in discourse*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Cristina Cacciari  and
Maria Chiara Levorato
Cristina Cacciari
Affiliation:
Università di Bologna
Maria Chiara Levorato*
Affiliation:
Università di Verona
*
Istituto Psicologia, Università di Verona, Vicolo dietro S. Francesco, Verona, Italy.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Some studies have shown that children tend to interpret figurative language literally. Our hypothesis is that they can reach an idiomatic competence if idioms are presented within a rich informational environment allowing children to grasp their figurative sense. First and third graders were presented with narratives biased both to the figurative meaning of idioms (experiment 1) and to the literal meaning (experiment 2) and then given a comprehension task. Experiment 3 was designed to investigate children's production of idioms as compared to the comprehension abilities explored in experiments 1 and 2. Results show that informative contexts can improve children's ability to perceive idiomatic meanings even at the age of seven; and that children are less able to produce idioms than to comprehend them. Generally results emphasize that children seem able to perceive that language can be both figurative and literal.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , June 1989 , pp. 387 - 405
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

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

*

The present research was supported by a grant from the Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione (1985, fondi 60%) to M. Chiara Levorato.

References

REFERENCES

Ackerman, B. P. (1982). On comprehending idioms: do children get the picture? Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 33. 439–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ackerman, B. P. (1983). Form and function in children's understanding of ironic utterances. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 35. Vol. 3. 487–508.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bobrow, S. & Bell, S. (1973). On catching onto idiomatic expressions. Memory and Cognition 1 343–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cacciari, C. & Tabossi, P. (1987). The comprehension of opaque idioms. Paper presented at the 2nd Conference of the European Society of Cognitive Psychology Madrid.Google Scholar
Chafe, W. (1970). Meaning and the structure of language. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Clark, H. H. (1979). Responding to indirect speech acts. Cognitive Psychology 11. 430–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, H. H. & Lucy, P. (1975). Understanding what is meant from what is said: a study in conversationally conveyed request. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 14. 56–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flavell, J. H. & Ross, I. (eds) (1981). Social cognitive development. Cambridge: C.U.P.Google Scholar
Gardner, H., Winner, E., Bechofer, R. & Wolf, D. (1978). The development of figurative language. In Nelson, K. E. (ed.), Children's language. Vol. 1. New York: Gardner.Google Scholar
Gibbs, W. R. (1980). Spilling the beans on understanding and memory for idioms in context. Memory and Cognition 8. 149–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibbs, W. R. (1986). Skating on thin ice: literal meaning and understanding idioms in conversation. Discourse Processes 9. 17–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibbs, W. R. (1987). Linguistic factors in children's understanding of idioms. Journal of Child Language 14. 569–86.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Glucksberg, S. (1986). How people use context to resolve ambiguity: implications for an interactive model of language comprehension. In Kurcz, I., Shugar, G. W. & Danks, J. (eds), Knowledge and language. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science Publisher.Google Scholar
Lodge, L. & Leach, E. (1975). Children's acquisition of idioms in the English language. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 18. 521–9.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ortony, A. (1979). The role of similarity in similes and metaphors. In Ortony, A. (ed.), Metaphor and thought. New York: C.U.P.Google Scholar
Pollio, M. R. & Pickens, J. P. (1980). The developmental structure of figurative competence. In Honeck, R. P. & Hoffman, R. R. (eds), Cognition and figurative language. Hillsdale NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Prinz, P. M. (1983). The development of idiomatic meaning in children. Language and Speech 26. Vol. 3. 263–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reynolds, R. E. & Ortony, A. (1980). Some issues in the measurement of children's comprehension of metaphorical language. Child Development 51. 1110–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rumelhart, D. E. (1977). Understanding and summarizing brief stories. In La Berge, D. & Samuels, S. J. (eds), Basic processes in reading: perception and comprehension. Hillsdale NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Rumelhart, D. E. (1979). Some problems with the notion of literal meaning. In Ortony, A. (ed.), Metaphor and thought. New York: C.U.P.Google Scholar
Searle, J. R. (1979). Metaphor. In Ortony, A. (ed.), Metaphor and thought. New York: C.U.P.Google Scholar
Swinney, D. A. & Cutler, A. (1979). The access and processing of idiomatic expressions. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 18. 523–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Winner, E., Engel, M. & Gardner, H. (1980). Misunderstanding metaphor: what's the problem? Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 30. 22–32.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed