The inferential chain makes the difference between familiar and novel figurative expressions

Abstract

The present investigation focuses on children's ability to comprehend the communicative meaning of figurative expressions. We advance a theoretical framework where the length of the inferential chain accounts for the difference in difficulty of reconstructing the communicative meaning of familiar and novel figurative expressions. The results of Experiment 1, involving 90 children from 7- to 10-year-olds, confirm our prediction. Experiment 2, involving 54 children of the same age, does not support an alternative, syntactic, explanation for our results. Experiment 3, also involving 54 children from 7 to 10 years old, replicates the results of the two previous experiments in a single experiment. The overall results strengthen our assumptions: The length of the inferential chain, but not the syntactic complexity involved, is the factor that better explains the difference in difficulty of reconstructing the communicative meaning of the familiar and novel figurative expressions investigated. The overall results are discussed in relation to the relevant experimental literature.

Keywords:

• Communicative meaning
• Familiar figurative expressions
• Inferential chains
• Novel figurative expressions

Acknowledgments

We thank Alessandra Laterza and Paola Roverio for their help in administering the experimental protocols. The first and second authors were supported in this research by Regione Piemonte, Project: Institutions, Behaviour and Markets in Local and Global Settings (Project IIINBEMA). The third author was supported in this research by Regione Piemonte of Italy, ATLAS project ID 44.

Notes

¹Unless otherwise specified, all the examples in this paper are the English translation of the Italian expressions we used in our experiments.