title: Children's comprehension skill and the understanding of nominal metaphors.
abstract: According to Levorato and Cacciari's global elaboration model, understanding figurative language is explained by the same processes and background knowledge that are required for literal language. In this study, we investigated the relation between children's comprehension skill and the ability to understand referential nominal metaphors. Two groups of poor versus good comprehenders (8- to 10-year-olds) matched for word reading and vocabulary skills were invited to identify the referent of nouns used metaphorically or literally in short texts. Compared with good comprehenders, performance of poor comprehenders showed a substantial decrease in the metaphoric condition. Moreover, their performance was strongly affected by the degree of semantic incongruence between the terms of the nominal metaphor. These findings are discussed in relation to several factors, in particular the ability to use contextual information and semantic processing.
authors.affiliation: Université Paris 13, Sorbonne Paris Cité, Unité Transversale de Recherche Psychogenèse et Psychopathologie (UTRPP), EA 4403, F-93430 Villetaneuse, France. Electronic address: seigneuric@univ-paris13.fr.
authors.forename: Alix
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Seigneuric
authors.affiliation: Université Paris 13, Sorbonne Paris Cité, Unité Transversale de Recherche Psychogenèse et Psychopathologie (UTRPP), EA 4403, F-93430 Villetaneuse, France.
authors.forename: Hakima
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Megherbi
authors.affiliation: Université Paris 13, Sorbonne Paris Cité, Unité Transversale de Recherche Psychogenèse et Psychopathologie (UTRPP), EA 4403, F-93430 Villetaneuse, France.
authors.forename: Steve
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bueno
authors.affiliation: Université Paris 13, Sorbonne Paris Cité, Unité Transversale de Recherche Psychogenèse et Psychopathologie (UTRPP), EA 4403, F-93430 Villetaneuse, France.
authors.forename: Julie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lebahar
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire des Sciences de l'Education, Université Pierre-Mendès-France, EA 602, BP 47, F-38040 Grenoble Cedex 9, France.
authors.forename: Maryse
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bianco
mesh_terms: D001076:Aptitude / Q000502:physiology; D002648:Child; D032882:Comprehension / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D019359:Knowledge; D007802:Language; D007807:Language Tests; D008297:Male; D019365:Metaphor; D010700:Phonetics; D011932:Reading; D012660:Semantics; D014825:Vocabulary
keywords: Figurative language; Nominal metaphor; Reading comprehension difficulties; Semantic categories