Development of comprehension of ironic utterances in 3- to 9-year-old Finnish-speaking children

• Authors: Soile Loukusa , Eeva Leinonen
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

This study explores the comprehension of simple ironic utterances in 210 Finnish children aged from 3 to 9 years. If the child answered the question correctly, he/she was asked to explain correct answers. The results indicated that there was large individual variation within age groups both in answers and explanations. In terms of correct answers there was a significant difference between 6- and 7-year-olds and in correct explanations between age groups of 3-4, 6-7 and 7-8. Analysis of incorrect answers showed that literal interpretation of an utterance was the most common incorrect answer type in all age groups. Totally irrelevant answers occurred only in children aged 3 and 4. In terms of incorrect explanations, "turntaking" and "incorrect focus" categories were the most common incorrect explanation types. Contrary to previous studies, in this study already some of the 3- and 4-year-olds showed an emerging ability to comprehend irony.

Keywords

EN

ironic utterances; comprehension of irony; verbal irony vs. literal language

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: Psychology of Language and Communication
• Year: 2008
• Volume: 12
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 55-69

Dates

published

2008-01-01

online

2008-08-22

Contributors

author

Soile Loukusa

author

Eeva Leinonen

• University of Hertfordshire

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Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/v10057-008-0003-0