Levorato M C, Cacciari C
University of Padova, Italy.
J Exp Child Psychol. 1995 Oct;60(2):261-83. doi: 10.1006/jecp.1995.1041.
The present study investigated the developmental processes which lead from a literal interpretation of idiomatic expression to the ability of comprehending and producing them figuratively. A Model of the Development of Figurative Competence was presented according to which acquisition of idioms occurs as part of the general process of language and world knowledge development. Three experiments were carried out with second- and fourth-grade children, in which comprehension tasks - Recall, Multiple Choice, Paraphrase - and a production task - Completion - were employed. The results showed that younger children are more literally oriented than older children who in turn are more idiomatically oriented and that children of both age groups found it more difficult to produce idiomatic expressions than to comprehend them.
本研究调查了从对习语表达的字面理解到能够形象地理解和运用习语表达的发展过程。提出了一个形象能力发展模型，根据该模型，习语的习得是语言和世界知识发展的一般过程的一部分。对二年级和四年级的儿童进行了三项实验，实验采用了理解任务——回忆、多项选择、释义——和一项产出任务——完成。结果表明，年幼儿童比年长儿童更倾向于字面理解，而年长儿童则更倾向于习语理解，并且两个年龄组的儿童都发现产出习语表达比理解习语表达更困难。
