A Comparative Study of Scalar Implicature Comprehension in 5-7 Monolingual Persian-speaking Children and Adults

Khani, Arezou; Jamali, Ali; Khoshbakht, Tayebeh

doi:10.22059/jolr.2024.372068.666877

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

¹ Department of English Language and Literature, Ilam Branch, Islamic Azad university, Ilam, Iran.

² Department of English Language and Literature, Ilam Branch, Islamic Azad university, Ilam, Iran

³ Department of linguistics, Islamic Azad University, Ilam branch, ilam, Iran

https://doi.org/10.22059/jolr.2024.372068.666877

Abstract

Research showed that children need two important pragmatic skills to understand Simile: understanding the intended similarity and deriving a scalar implicature. However, the second skill has not been studied yet by Iranian researchers. The aim of the present study was to investigate the ability of mono-lingual Persian-speaking children aged 5 to 7 years old and adults in understanding scalar implicature. To this aim, 30 Persian speaking children 5, 6 and 7 years old were selected and were compared with 10 adults. The groups were investigated and compared on a first experiment which was a form of similarity judgment task and on a second experiment, which was in a form of a game. In the first experiment, subjects should understand "x is like a y" as an expression of similarity. In the second experiment, the subjects received metaphors (“Nina is a rabbit”) and similes (“Nina is like a rabbit) as clues to select one of a three images (a rabbit, a girl or a rabbit looking girl). The results showed that 5 years old children were able to understand the implicature “x is not a y”, whereas 7-6 years old children performed like adults. The results showed that children from the early childhood were able to understand and extract scalar implicature and the literal meaning of simile and metaphor decreased by increasing age

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Language Research

A Comparative Study of Scalar Implicature Comprehension in 5-7 Monolingual Persian-speaking Children and Adults

References

References

Volume 15, Issue 2 - Serial Number 26
January 2025
Pages 99-124

A Comparative Study of Scalar Implicature Comprehension in 5-7 Monolingual Persian-speaking Children and Adults

References

References

Volume 15, Issue 2 - Serial Number 26January 2025Pages 99-124

Volume 15, Issue 2 - Serial Number 26
January 2025
Pages 99-124