THE REALIZATION OF METAPHOR IN CONTEXT -- A DEVELOPMENTAL STUDY OF INTERPRETATION.
Item
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Title
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THE REALIZATION OF METAPHOR IN CONTEXT -- A DEVELOPMENTAL STUDY OF INTERPRETATION.
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Identifier
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AAI8302515
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identifier
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8302515
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Creator
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HADLEY, MARTHA J.
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Contributor
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Joseph Glick | Katherine Nelson
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Date
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1982
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Psychology, Experimental
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Abstract
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Metaphors are unconventional uses of language, distinct and intriguing in the flow of a text or discourse. Studies of metaphor interpretation have, therefore, dealt with metaphors apart from the context of more conventional language; figures separated from ground. The empirical question for developmental psychologists has been when and how children and adults "understand" metaphors presented in isolation as figurative assertions.;The approach taken here is that interpretations of metaphors are actively constructed by reader-listeners in relation to the context in which they appear. The potential richness of metaphor interpretation is in how the reader-listener selects and integrates information from the context with his/her knowledge. Such interpretive activity will reflect various intentions towards language and different possible forms of figurative, or even non-figurative, interpretations.;This research has explored the nature and development of metaphor interpretation by presenting two types of metaphors (more and less dependent on context for figurative intent) to subjects in four age groups, either with or without access to the metaphors' original contexts, brief stories written by children. Interpretations were exclusively decribed using a code designed to provide data on both inference of figurative intent and qualities of interpretation, including uses of context.;The results indicate that even the five-year-olds were frequently able to construct figurative interpretations of metaphors with access to context. Older children and adults were progressively less dependent on context to infer figurative intent. They used the context more implicitly and constructed qualitatively different forms of figurative interpretations.;The significance of access to context for competence in acts of interpretation and the qualitatively distinct forms of interpretation characterized for each age group extend previous concepts of what is entailed in the interpretation of metaphor and its development. Metaphor interpretation is not one ability, and interpretations are not adequately described by the traditional distinction between the undifferentiated extremes of figurative and literal. The development of metaphor interpretation includes continuous and discontinuous changes in different aspects of interpretive activity that suggest particular functions of the intentions towards more metaphoric uses of language at different points in development.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Psychology
