Abstract
This study explores the effects of violating socially shared versus situationally defined norms on the understanding of ironic statements in 70 Italian-speaking five- and seven-year-old children. We also considered the possible relationships between irony understanding, receptive and metacognitive vocabulary, and false belief understanding. The results showed that violating socially shared norms does not benefit younger children's understanding of irony, although it does help older children's understanding. Ironic utterances that violate situationally defined norms were understood similarly across the two age groups. First- and second-order false belief understanding did not predict children's ability to interpret irony, although metacognitive vocabulary did predict interpretation for the seven-year-old group in instances of violating a situationally defined norm.
Notes
1 Although it does not represent a crucial aspect of this work, it is important to note that the model of Giora and colleagues provides a very detailed perspective about the way in which contextually relevant or irrelevant meanings and salient or not salient meanings interact for the comprehension of an ironic statement.