Children鈥檚 understanding of ambiguous idioms and conversational perspective-taking

详细信息	查看全文 | 推荐本文 |

• 作者：Sandrine Le Sourn-Bissaoui^a ; ^{sandrine.lesourn-bissaoui@uhb.fr} ; Sté ; phanie Caillies^b ; Sté ; phane Bernard^c ; Michel Deleau^a ; Lauriane Brulé ; ^b
• 关键词：Idiomatic expression ; Pragmatic ; Compositionality ; Conversational perspective-taking ; Preschool children ; Unfamiliar ambiguous idiom
• 刊名：Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
• 出版年：2012
• 期刊代码：84_00220965
• 类别：psy
• 出版时间：August, 2012
• 卷：112
• 期：4
• 页码：437-451
• 文件大小：576 K

摘要

The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that conversational perspective-taking is a determinant of unfamiliar ambiguous idiom comprehension. We investigated two types of ambiguous idiom, decomposable and nondecomposable expressions, which differ in the degree to which the literal meanings of the individual words contribute to the overall idiomatic meaning. We designed an experiment to assess the relationship between the acquisition of figurative comprehension and conversational perspective-taking. Our sample of children aged 5-7 years performed three conversational perspective-taking tasks (language acts, shared/unshared information, and conversational maxims). They then listened to decomposable and nondecomposable idiomatic expressions presented in context before performing a multiple-choice task (figurative, literal, and contextual responses). Results indicated that decomposable idiom comprehension was predicted by conversational perspective-taking scores and language skills, whereas nondecomposable idiom comprehension was predicted solely by language skills. We discuss our findings with respect to verbal and pragmatic skills.