Idiom comprehension in the language acquisition period

Authors

  • Maity Siqueira Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7496-4951
  • Sergio Duarte Junior Bitácora Centro de Neuropsicologia
  • Laura Baiocco Pereira Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul
  • Caroline Girardi Ferrari Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul
  • Nichele Lopes Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15448/1984-7726.2017.3.29371

Keywords:

Idioms, Figurative language comprehension, Cognitive linguistics, Psycholinguistics

Abstract

There are already a bulk of studies addressing idiom comprehension. However, developmental studies testing idiom comprehension in Portuguese are rare. This paper aims at presenting the results of an idiom comprehension task with 270 participants in three age groups (children, adolescents and adults). The task consists of six items: sentences followed by an open-ended question and a dichotomous one. A comparison between the three groups indicates a gradual increase in idiom comprehension. Besides age, linguistic variables such as context, transparency, metaphoricity and familiarity in the comprehension of idioms are discussed. The analyses suggest that this complex phenomenon should be studied considering all those aspects.

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References

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Published

2017-12-07

How to Cite

Siqueira, M., Duarte Junior, S., Pereira, L. B., Ferrari, C. G., & Lopes, N. (2017). Idiom comprehension in the language acquisition period. Letras De Hoje, 52(3), 391–400. https://doi.org/10.15448/1984-7726.2017.3.29371

Issue

Vol. 52 No. 3 (2017): The pragmatics of interlanguage

Section

Articles

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