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That kid is a grasshopper! Metaphor development from 3 to 9 years of age

Martín-González, Isabel ; Ronderos, Camilo R. LU orcid ; Castroviejo, Elena ; Schroeder, Kristen ; Lossius-Falkum, Ingrid and Vicente, Agustín (2024) In Journal of Child Language 52(4). p.945-970
Abstract

Two major trends on children's skills to comprehend metaphors have governed the literature on the subject: the literal stage hypothesis vs. the early birds hypothesis (Falkum, 2022). We aim to contribute to this debate by testing children's capability to comprehend novel metaphors ('X is a Y') in Spanish with a child-friendly, picture selection task, while also tracking their gaze. Further, given recent findings on the development of metonymy comprehension suggesting a U-shaped developmental curve for this phenomenon (Köder & Falkum, 2020), we aimed to determine the shape of the developmental trajectory of novel metaphor comprehension, and to explore how both types of data (picture selection and gaze behavior) relate to each other.... (More)

Two major trends on children's skills to comprehend metaphors have governed the literature on the subject: the literal stage hypothesis vs. the early birds hypothesis (Falkum, 2022). We aim to contribute to this debate by testing children's capability to comprehend novel metaphors ('X is a Y') in Spanish with a child-friendly, picture selection task, while also tracking their gaze. Further, given recent findings on the development of metonymy comprehension suggesting a U-shaped developmental curve for this phenomenon (Köder & Falkum, 2020), we aimed to determine the shape of the developmental trajectory of novel metaphor comprehension, and to explore how both types of data (picture selection and gaze behavior) relate to each other. Our results suggest a linear developmental trajectory with 6-year-olds significantly succeeding in picture selection and consistently looking at the metaphorical target even after question onset.

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author
; ; ; ; and
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
keywords
experimental pragmatics, eye-tracking, figurative language, metaphor development
in
Journal of Child Language
volume
52
issue
4
pages
945 - 970
publisher
Cambridge University Press
external identifiers
  • pmid:38736422
  • scopus:85193601639
ISSN
0305-0009
DOI
10.1017/S0305000924000187
language
English
LU publication?
no
additional info
Publisher Copyright: Copyright © 2024 The Author(s).
id
cc4680c9-3336-47fb-956d-564a96cc8323
date added to LUP
2025-08-06 12:40:49
date last changed
2025-08-14 03:36:48
@article{cc4680c9-3336-47fb-956d-564a96cc8323,
  abstract     = {{<p>Two major trends on children's skills to comprehend metaphors have governed the literature on the subject: the literal stage hypothesis vs. the early birds hypothesis (Falkum, 2022). We aim to contribute to this debate by testing children's capability to comprehend novel metaphors ('X is a Y') in Spanish with a child-friendly, picture selection task, while also tracking their gaze. Further, given recent findings on the development of metonymy comprehension suggesting a U-shaped developmental curve for this phenomenon (Köder &amp; Falkum, 2020), we aimed to determine the shape of the developmental trajectory of novel metaphor comprehension, and to explore how both types of data (picture selection and gaze behavior) relate to each other. Our results suggest a linear developmental trajectory with 6-year-olds significantly succeeding in picture selection and consistently looking at the metaphorical target even after question onset.</p>}},
  author       = {{Martín-González, Isabel and Ronderos, Camilo R. and Castroviejo, Elena and Schroeder, Kristen and Lossius-Falkum, Ingrid and Vicente, Agustín}},
  issn         = {{0305-0009}},
  keywords     = {{experimental pragmatics; eye-tracking; figurative language; metaphor development}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{4}},
  pages        = {{945--970}},
  publisher    = {{Cambridge University Press}},
  series       = {{Journal of Child Language}},
  title        = {{That kid is a grasshopper! Metaphor development from 3 to 9 years of age}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0305000924000187}},
  doi          = {{10.1017/S0305000924000187}},
  volume       = {{52}},
  year         = {{2024}},
}