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Exploring the role of conventionality in children's interpretation of ironic remarks*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2014

DEBRA L. BURNETT
DEBRA L. BURNETT*
Affiliation:
Kansas State University
*
Address for correspondence: Debra L. Burnett, Program in Communication Sciences and Disorders, School of Family Studies and Human Services, Kansas State University, 238 Campus Creek Complex, Manhattan, Kansas 66506. tel: (785) 532-0802; fax: (785) 532-6523; e-mail: deburnet@ksu.edu
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Abstract

Irony comprehension in seven- and eight-year-old children with typically developing language skills was explored under the framework of the graded salience hypothesis. Target ironic remarks, either conventional or novel/situation-specific, were presented following brief story contexts. Children's responses to comprehension questions were used to determine their understanding of the components of irony: speaker meaning, speaker attitude, and speaker intent. It was hypothesized that conventional remarks would be easier to comprehend than novel/situation-specific remarks because they are more likely to be familiar to the children. Results indicated that children demonstrated better comprehension of speaker meaning for conventional remarks than for novel/situation-specific remarks but no significant differences were found for inferring speaker attitude or speaker intent.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 42 , Issue 6 , November 2015 , pp. 1267 - 1288
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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Footnotes

[*]

The author would like to thank Linda Milosky, Benita Blachman, Mary Louise Edwards, Janet Ford, and Annette Jenner-Matthews for their considerable support and mentoring in the completion of this project, Caroline Moore for her wonderful illustrations, the undergraduate and graduate students who worked in the language lab on various stages of the project, and the children who participated. Thanks also to Ann Bosma Smit and two anonymous reviewers for valuable feedback on an earlier version of this paper.

References

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