Context and the Development of Metaphor Comprehension

Abstract

Metaphor comprehension is seen as an interactive process that takes place between a metaphorical linguistic input and the linguistic and situational context in which it occurs. Children are capable of using the information provided by the linguistic and situational context to make inferences about the meaning of metaphorical sentences. Context helps children decide when a linguistic input should be interpreted nonliterally and provides children with clues about the metaphor's implied meaning. It appears that young children can profit more from a situational context than a linguistic context in interpreting metaphors and that reliance on both the situational and linguistic contexts decreases with increases in the knowledge base. Further research is needed to clarify the processes whereby children use contextual information in order to construct the meaning of a metaphor.