Department of Psychology, McGill University, 2001 McGill College Ave., Montreal, Quebec, H3A 1G1, Canada.
Center for Economic Studies, Research and Methodology Directorate, U.S. Census Bureau, Suitland-Silver Hill, MD, USA.
Mem Cognit. 2023 Feb;51(2):253-272. doi: 10.3758/s13421-022-01349-4. Epub 2022 Aug 24.
Diverse bilingual experiences have implications for language comprehension, including pragmatic elements such as verbal irony. Irony comprehension is shaped by an interplay of linguistic, cognitive, and social factors, including individual differences in bilingual experience. We examined the relationship between individual differences related to bilingualism, specifically, the capacity to understand others' mental states and ambient exposure to language diversity, on irony comprehension. We tested 54 healthy bilingual adults, living in a linguistically diverse region-Montréal, Canada-on an irony comprehension task. This task involved reading positive and negative short stories that concluded with an ironic or literal statement, which were rated on appropriateness and perceived irony. While both irony forms were rated as less appropriate and more ironic than literal statements, ironic criticisms (following a negative context) were rated as more appropriate and higher in perceived irony than ironic compliments (following a positive context). As expected, these ratings varied as a function of individual differences in mentalizing and neighborhood language diversity. Greater mentalizing patterned with more appropriate ratings to ironic statements in high language diversity neighborhoods and with less appropriate ratings to ironic statements in low language diversity neighborhoods. Perceived irony ratings to ironic compliments increased with mentalizing as neighborhood language diversity increased. These results indicate that pragmatic language comprehension and its social cognitive underpinnings may be environmentally contextualized processes.
双语经验的多样性对语言理解有影响,包括言语反讽等语用元素。反讽理解受到语言、认知和社会因素的相互作用的影响,包括双语经验的个体差异。我们研究了与双语相关的个体差异(具体而言,理解他人心理状态的能力和语言多样性的环境暴露)与反讽理解之间的关系。我们在一个语言多样化的地区——加拿大蒙特利尔——测试了 54 名健康的双语成年人,让他们完成一项反讽理解任务。这个任务包括阅读带有积极和消极结尾的短篇故事,结尾是反讽或字面陈述,然后对这些陈述的恰当性和感知反讽程度进行评价。虽然两种反讽形式都比字面陈述的恰当性和感知反讽程度低,但与积极语境下的反讽恭维相比,消极语境下的反讽批评(following a negative context)被认为更恰当,感知反讽程度更高。正如预期的那样,这些评价因心理理论和邻里语言多样性的个体差异而有所不同。在语言多样性高的社区中,更高的心理理论与反讽陈述的更恰当评价相关,而在语言多样性低的社区中,与反讽陈述的更不恰当评价相关。随着邻里语言多样性的增加,对反讽恭维的感知反讽程度也会增加。这些结果表明,语用语言理解及其社会认知基础可能是环境背景化的过程。