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Children's comprehension and production of idioms: the role of context and familiarity*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Maria Chiara Levorato  and
Cristina Cacciari
Maria Chiara Levorato*
Affiliation:
University of Padova
Cristina Cacciari
Affiliation:
University of Bologna
*
Dipartimento di Psicologia dello Sviluppo e della Socializzazione, via Beato Pellegrino, 26.35137 Padova, Italy.
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Abstract

Several studies have argued that children under the ages of nine or ten years rarely comprehend figurative language and therefore interpret it literally. Cacciari & Levorato (1989). showed that when idioms are presented within a rich informational environment, children are able to grasp the figurative sense at the age of seven, and also that children are less able to produce idioms than to comprehend them. In three experiments involving 264 children (whose age ranged from 6;9 to 11;9), we contrasted this global elaboration hypothesis with a partially alternative one, the acquisition via exposure hypothesis, according to which the frequency of exposure of children to idioms is the main factor explaining their acquisition and production. Results showed that familiarity (i.e. frequency of exposure) plays a minor role and only for children who are not yet able to use contextual information. Familiarity per se does not adequately explain how children acquire a figurative competence. A tentative model is proposed in order to account for figurative competence acquisition.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , June 1992 , pp. 415 - 433
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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Footnotes

*

The present research was supported by grant No. 89.04435.08 from the National Council for Research to the first author. Part of the data were first presented at the 1990 International Pragmatics Conference, Barcelona, Spain.

References

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