Children's understanding of social-cognitive and social-communicative aspects of discourse irony.
To bridge the social-reasoning focus of developmental research on irony understanding and the pragmatic focus of research with adult populations, this cross-sectional study examines 5-, 7-, and 9-year-olds' (n = 72) developing understanding of both social-cognitive and social-communicative aspects of discourse irony, when compared with adults (n = 24). Although 5-year-olds lag behind the other age groups in their reasoning about the speaker's meaning, belief, intention, and motivation, adults are consistently superior to children of all ages on these social-cognitive measures. In contrast, limited age-related differences were found in participants' judgment of the social-communicative function of irony (how nice, mean, and funny irony is). The findings help to reconcile previous discrepant claims as to the age when children come to understand irony.
Filippova
Eva
E
Institute of Phonetics, Faculty of Arts, Charles, University in Prague, Nám. J. Palacha 2, 116 38 Prague 1, CzechRepublic. eva.filippova@ff.cuni.cz
Astington
Janet Wilde
JW
D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003142:Communication; D032882:Comprehension; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007804:Language Development; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D018187:Personal Construct Theory; D011578:Psycholinguistics; D012660:Semantics; D012951:Socialization; D013067:Speech Perception; D014705:Verbal Behavior; D014925:Wit and Humor as Topic; D055815:Young Adult