Understanding Versus Discriminating Nonliteral Utterances: Evidence for a Dissociation

Abstract

According to Olson (1988), full comprehension of nonliteral language must include the recognition of the implied meaning of the utterance and an awareness that there are two distinct levels of meaning—what is said and what is meant. Three experiments were performed to investigate children's comprehension of nonliteral language and their awareness of the say-mean distinction in such language. In Experiment 1, children heard irony modeled and were asked to produce similar utterances. Six-year-olds produced literal insults, showing that they understood the modeled irony but were not aware of the say-mean distinction. In Experiment 2, 6- and 7-year-olds were tested for awareness and comprehension of both metaphor and irony.