title: Exploring the role of conventionality in children's interpretation of ironic remarks.
abstract: Irony comprehension in seven- and eight-year-old children with typically developing language skills was explored under the framework of the graded salience hypothesis. Target ironic remarks, either conventional or novel/situation-specific, were presented following brief story contexts. Children's responses to comprehension questions were used to determine their understanding of the components of irony: speaker meaning, speaker attitude, and speaker intent. It was hypothesized that conventional remarks would be easier to comprehend than novel/situation-specific remarks because they are more likely to be familiar to the children. Results indicated that children demonstrated better comprehension of speaker meaning for conventional remarks than for novel/situation-specific remarks but no significant differences were found for inferring speaker attitude or speaker intent.
authors.affiliation: Kansas State University.
authors.forename: Debra L
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Burnett
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D032882:Comprehension; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D012660:Semantics