title: Using metaphors as modifiers: children's production of metaphoric compounds.
abstract: Although much research has investigated children's use of metaphoric language, methodological concerns raise questions about the conclusions, and it remains unclear whether preschoolers can produce metaphors. These studies employed a new methodology to test children's ability to produce metaphors incorporated into metaphoric compounds. In two studies, 59 children aged 2:8-4:3, 63 children aged 4:4-6:1, and 34 adults participated in elicited production tasks. In Study 1, subjects in the COMPOUND condition corrected a puppet's incorrect compound labels for pictures that had metaphoric resemblances to other objects (e.g. 'leaf-bug' for a bug shaped like a stick). Subjects in the NONMETAPHORIC condition heard incorrect compounds describing pictures without obvious metaphoric resemblance (e.g. 'leaf-bug' for a round black beetle). Children in the REVERSAL condition heard compounds with nouns reversed (e.g. 'bug-leaf' for the stick-bug) to discover whether children distinguished between the literal and metaphoric labels. Study 2 provided an additional test of children's metaphoric-literal distinction. Results showed that children as young as 3:0 produced intentional, appropriate metaphors incorporated into compound nouns when the stimuli and puppet's labels primed recognition of metaphoric similarity and compound production. Moreover, children showed evidence of a distinction between literal and metaphoric labels. The data show that preschool children have an early ability to use metaphoric language but that significant developmental change occurs between the ages of 3:0 and 5:0 as well as beyond 5:0. Additionally, metaphoric language in preschoolers is not limited to single-word renamings.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA 90041, USA.
authors.forename: G M
authors.initials: GM
authors.lastname: Gottfried
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002663:Child Language; D002675:Child, Preschool; D006801:Humans; D007804:Language Development; D019365:Metaphor