What Are You Really Saying? Associations between Shyness and Verbal Irony Comprehension

Verbal irony exploits the ambiguity inherent in language by using the discrepancy between a speaker's intended meaning and the literal meaning of his or her words to achieve social goals. Irony provides a window into children's developing pragmatic competence. Yet, little research exists on individual differences that may disrupt this understanding. For example, verbal irony may challenge shy children, who tend to interpret ambiguous stimuli as being threatening and who have difficulty mentalizing in social contexts. We examined whether shyness is related to the interpretation of ironic statements. Ninety‐nine children (8–12 year olds) listened to stories wherein one character made either a literal or ironic criticism or a literal or ironic compliment. Children appraised the speaker's belief and communicative intention. Shyness was assessed using self‐report measures of social anxiety symptoms and shy negative affect. Shyness was not related to children's comprehension of the counterfactual nature of ironic statements. However, shyness was related to children's ratings of speaker meanness for ironic statements. Thus, although not related to the understanding that speakers intended to communicate their true beliefs, shyness was related to children's construal of the social meaning of irony. Such subtle differences in language interpretation may underlie some of the social difficulties facing shy children. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Children's Comprehension of Critical and Complimentary Forms of Verbal Irony

The existing research on children's comprehension of verbal irony has focused exclusively on children's understanding of ironic criticisms. Two experiments examined 5- and 6-year-old children's ability to detect the nonliteral nature and intended meaning of both ironic criticism and ironic praise as depicted in short, videotaped stories. Considered together, the results from these experiments permit several conclusions: First, the data confirm earlier research suggesting that children's detection of nonliteral utterances and their interpretation of the speaker's pragmatic intent are separable components of early irony comprehension. Second, children's ability to detect ironic statements is asymmetrical across critical and complimentary forms of irony. Finally, although children more readily detect ironic criticisms, explicit echoic cues play an important role in facilitating uniquely their detection of ironic compliments. We discuss these results in the context of social pragmatic theories of early communicative development (e.g., Bruner, 1983; Tomasello, 1992, 1995) and with reference to a recent allusional-pretense model of irony comprehension proposed for mature speakers (Kumon-Nakamura, Glucksberg, & Brown, 1995).     

WHY DO PEOPLE USE FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE?

Abstract— In this article, we examine the discourse goals that are accomplished by the use of eight forms of figurative language: hyperbole, idiom, indirect request, irony, understatement, metaphor, rhetorical question, and simile. Subjects were asked to provide reasons why they would use a particular figure of speech. Based on their responses, a discourse goal taxonomy that includes each of the eight figures was developed. The goal taxonomy indicates that each figure of speech is used to accomplish a unique constellation of communicative goals. The degree of goal overlap between the eight forms was also calculated, and the results provide support for theoretical claims about the relatedness of certain figures. Taken together, the goal taxonomy and overlap scores broaden our understanding of functional and theoretical differences between the various kinds of figurative language.     

Eye Gaze Provides a Window on Children's Understanding of Verbal Irony

We investigated how children solve the interpretive problem of verbal irony. Children 5 to 8 years of age and a group of adults were presented with ironic and literal remarks in the context of short puppet shows. The speaker puppet's personality was manipulated as a cue to intent; that is, speakers were described as funny or serious. We measured all participants' interpretations of the remarks and also children's eye gaze and response latencies as they made their interpretations. As expected, children were less accurate than adults in their judgments of speaker intent. Although children took longer to judge speaker intent for ironic remarks than literal remarks, eye gaze data showed no evidence that children had a literal-first bias in their processing of ironic language. Instead, children's eye gaze behavior suggested that they considered an ironic interpretation even in the earliest moments of processing. We argue that these results are most consistent with a parallel constraint satisfaction framework for irony comprehension.     

Irony and second-order false belief in children: What changes when mothers rather than siblings speak?

This study explored irony understanding in school-age children, when the irony is used in two different family relations: between a child and the child's mother and between a child and a sibling. Two irony task typologies were used to assess 6-, 8-, and 10-year-olds' understanding of the intended and expressed meanings (Study 1: N = 77; Study 2: N = 30). Results proved that the relationship with the mother, more than the relationship with a sibling, supported children's irony understanding. A predictive effect of second-order false-belief understanding on irony comprehension was also found. The findings support the hypothesis that the irony understanding, at least in the acquisition phase, depends on the relational contexts in which it is used. The predictive effect of second-order recursive thinking confirms and extends the role of theory of mind in the management of ironic communication.     

Do social norms,false belief understanding,and metacognitive vocabulary influence irony comprehension? A study of five- and seven-year-old children

This study explores the effects of violating socially shared versus situationally defined norms on the understanding of ironic statements in 70 Italian-speaking five- and seven-year-old children. We also considered the possible relationships between irony understanding, receptive and metacognitive vocabulary, and false belief understanding. The results showed that violating socially shared norms does not benefit younger children's understanding of irony, although it does help older children's understanding. Ironic utterances that violate situationally defined norms were understood similarly across the two age groups. First- and second-order false belief understanding did not predict children's ability to interpret irony, although metacognitive vocabulary did predict interpretation for the seven-year-old group in instances of violating a situationally defined norm.     

Working Together to Make Sense of the Past: Mothers' and Children's Use of Internal States Language in Conversations about Traumatic and Nontraumatic Events

Mother-child conversations about a devastating tornado and about 2 nontraumatic events were examined to determine whether there were (a) differences in use of internal states language when talking about traumatic and nontraumatic events and (b) similarities in mothers' and children's use of internal states language. At Session 1, which took place 4 months after the tornado, with conversational length controlled, there was no evidence of differential use of internal states language as a function of event for mothers or children. At Session 2, which took place 6 months later (10 months after the tornado), older children's narratives about the tornado were more saturated with internal states language, relative to their narratives about nontornado events. For both the traumatic and the nontraumatic events, there were cross-lagged correlations between maternal use of emotion language at Session 1 and children's use of emotion language at Session 2. The pattern of findings is consistent with the suggestion that mother-child conversations are one context for the socialization of language about emotional experiences.     

From “blame by praise” to “praise by blame”: Analysis of vocal patterns in ironic communication

From a communication psychology point of view, irony is not only a rhetorical figure or a cunning linguistic device, but also an articulated strategy for a flexible negotiation of meaning, as well as for establishing and maintaining relations with others. Within the “irony family” phenomena our attention is focused on the sarcastic irony generated in a conflict context (“praise by blame”) and on the kind irony produced in a cooperation context (“blame by praise”). The effects of the variability of contextual cues on the vocal variables (Fo, energy, time) of irony were studied. Through the analysis of the vocal features of standard phrases in a conflict or cooperation context, an ironic dominant pattern has been found consisting of caricatured vocal traits, although differences referring to the two ironic expressions came out. From a subject‐by‐subject analysis, four ironic patterns were obtained: (1) in the cooperation context (a) a rather high and changeable pitch and strong energy (“bantering” joy) were observed, as well as (b) a low and monotone pitch and strong energy (emphatic mark of tenderness); (2) in the conflict context (a) a very high and changeable pitch, strong energy, and slow rate of articulation (“accented banter”) were found, as well as (b) a low and not very changeable pitch, slow rate of articulation, and steadily soft energy (like scorn and cold anger). Following these four vocal patterns, the ironic voice could be defined as a “voice of banter.” In such a way, irony appears as a method used to manipulate the weight of indirect speech, which allows the efficacy of the word and the innocence of silence. Moreover, the ironist can be described as an able director of his own image, able to play with the voice. Within social relationships, in fact, he can use his own voice for calibrating strategically his ways of (un)masking himself to the others.     

语境影响反语理解的眼动研究元分析

运用元分析的方法考察语境在反语理解中的作用及其相关的调节因素。通过文献检索,共搜集了13篇有效文献,16项实验数据,包含了806名被试。结果发现：(1)在反语理解正确率指标上反语明显比字面语更难理解,语境与目标反语不一致会产生额外推理过程,导致反语理解相对困难。(2)目标区反语和字面语在第一遍阅读时间指标上没有差异,但是在回视路径阅读时间和总阅读时间指标上反语的加工时间显著更长,这表明语境在反语加工的后期产生了作用,读者需要在加工后期对反语进行重新分析和整合,这一结果基本符合模块化理论的预测。(3)熟悉性对目标区的第一遍阅读时间和总阅读时间产生了调节作用,表明不管语境强度如何,熟悉的意义首先被加工,这一结果与分级显著性假设的预测基本一致。     

Associations of Mother–Child Reminiscing about Negative Past Events,Coping, and Self‐Concept in Early Childhood

Parent–child reminiscing conversations in early childhood have received theoretical attention as a forum for children's self‐concept development, but this has been little addressed in empirical work. This study examines associations between emotion reminiscing and children's self‐concepts and, building from the reminiscing and personality development literatures, also explores the role of children's coping. Sixty 4‐ and 5‐year‐old children and their mothers completed reminiscing conversations about events in which the child had experienced negative emotion, children completed an age‐appropriate assessment of their self‐concept, and mothers and teachers reported on children's coping strategies. Children's self‐perceived timidity was associated with their explanations for negative emotions during reminiscing. Children's self‐perceived negative affect was associated with fewer emotion resolutions during reminiscing, and with distinctive patterns of coping. Both reminiscing and coping made unique contributions to children's self‐concepts, and findings also suggest that coping may in some contexts indirectly connect reminiscing with self‐concept. These findings suggest that reminiscing conversations both reflect children's characteristics and provide a context for learning about their characteristics, along with strategies for emotion management. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

‘Infinity Means it Goes on Forever’: Siblings' Informal Teaching of Mathematics

Sibling‐directed teaching of mathematical topics during naturalistic home interactions was investigated in 39 middle‐class sibling dyads at two time points. At time 1 (T1), siblings were 2 and 4 years of age, and at time 2 (T2), siblings were 4 and 6 years of age. Intentional sequences of sibling‐directed mathematical teaching were coded for (i) topics (e.g., number), (ii) contexts (e.g., play with materials/toys), and (iii) type of knowledge (conceptual and procedural). Siblings engaged in teaching number, geometry, and measurement at T1 and demonstrated preliminary evidence of teaching of grouping, relations, and operations at T2. Regarding context, at T1, mathematical teaching occurred most frequently during play with materials/toys, while at T2, games with rules were prominent. Teaching of conceptual or procedural knowledge varied over time and by topic and context. Findings are discussed in light of recent work on understanding children's mathematical knowledge as it develops in the informal family context. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Medical or relational language? Problem and goal formulation in family therapy with adolescents conducted in a psychiatric outpatient setting

The constructionist view assumes that therapy participants' maps of understanding depend on the institutional context and their personal perspectives. The purpose of this study was to investigate the initial maps of difficulties reported by family members starting family therapy. 106 families that were referred to a psychiatric institution for outpatient family therapy were asked open-ended questions regarding the context of the referral, and goal and problem formulation for the therapy. The data were analysed via the consensual qualitative research-modified (CQR-M) method, and comparisons between groups were performed. The obtained results show a diversity of perspectives. Of interest was the predominance of medical language in describing the problem and relational language in describing the goal of therapy. An analysis of differences between mothers, fathers, adolescent patient and their siblings was also performed. The findings highlight the complexity of notions that families start family therapy with and may help therapists navigate through the therapeutic contract formulation process.     

Boosting Children's Memory by Training Mothers in the Use of an Elaborative Conversational Style as an Event Unfolds

An experimental methodology was adapted to examine children's language skills and mothers' conversational styles during a specified event as they are linked to the children's event memory. Thirty-nine preschoolers (mean age = 46.82 months) were pretested and grouped as having high or low language skills. Children in each group were then randomly assigned to either maternal-style training or no training conditions. Trained mothers were instructed to use 4 specific conversational techniques to enhance children's understanding of unfolding events: Wh- questions, associations, follow-ins, and positive evaluations. When observed engaging with their children in a specially constructed camping activity, trained mothers did indeed use these elements of style more than untrained mothers. Moreover, assessments of the children's memory after 1-day- and 3-week-delay intervals indicated substantial effects of both maternal training and children's language skills on remembering.     

Predicting children's literacy from mother-child conversations

Early mother-child conversations may be differentially related to children's emergent literacy, depending on the contexts examined and the function of specific utterance types within those contexts. Twenty White middle-class mothers talked about shared past events and read books with their children at 40, 46, and 58 months of age. Children completed a comprehensive literacy assessment at 70 months of age. Through regression analyses, distinct patterns of prediction emerged for children's print and narrative skills. Mothers' overall use of demanding, decontextualized utterances positively predicted children's print skills. However, mothers' increasing use of contextualizing utterances over the 18-month predictor period, especially during talk about the past, was an even stronger predictor of children's 70-month print performance. Finally, children's earlier participation figured more prominently in their later narrative skills than print abilities. Implications are discussed for scaffolding models of mother-child conversation and children's unique contributions to their own narrative development.     

Young children's storybooks as a source of mental state information

Ninety children's books (half for 3–4-year-olds and half for 5–6-year-olds) were analyzed for references to mental state in three ways: (a) via words and expressions in the text, (b) via the pictures, and (c) via ironic situations. Books for older children were significantly longer than the books for younger children, and overall, they included both a higher frequency of mental state references and a wider variety of such references. However, the rate of textual references to mental state was high for both groups, with a mental state token occurring on average every three sentences in books for both age groups. Moreover, the rate at which new types of mental state references appeared was also high; about every second token represented a new type of mental state reference. Pictures typically failed to represent independently the mental state concepts expressed in the text, but pictures and text together conveyed situational irony in over one-third of the books. Thus, mental state information was largely conveyed via words and irony. These findings suggest that storybook reading may provide even young children with a rich context for developing an understanding of mind.     

The Effect of Children's Sleeping Arrangements (Communal vs. Familial) on Fatherhood Among Men in an Israeli Kibbutz

Abstract

The author examined the effect of children's sleeping arrangements (communal vs. familial) on the extent of fathers' involvement in their children's lives and their level of satisfaction from fatherhood. Questionnaires assessing those aspects of fatherhood were administered to 40 fathers living in a kibbutz. Results indicated that the fathers of children sleeping at home were more involved with their children's lives and showed higher levels of satisfaction from fatherhood. Preference for a communal sleeping arrangement for children was expressed among 7 men, all of whom were older than 50 years. These results are discussed in the context of culturally changing concepts of paternal roles in the family and socioeconomic transition in the kibbutz.     

Sibling conflict and theory of mind

This study examined conflicts between siblings in an attempt to identify variables that are related to false‐belief understanding. The variables investigated were children's use of mental state terms and specific types of arguments (Slomkowski & Dunn, 1992) that occurred during conflict episodes. Twenty‐two children between 3 and 5 years of age were administered eight false‐belief tasks and were also videotaped while playing with an older sibling. Use of other‐oriented arguments by the target child was significantly associated with success on false‐belief tasks after controlling for age and general language ability. No use of argument was negatively related to performance on the false‐belief tasks after controlling for age and general language ability. Neither the use of self‐oriented arguments nor use of mental state terms was found to be associated with false‐belief performance. The findings indicate that specific features of sibling conflicts are related to children's developing false‐belief understanding.     

It's Fascinating Research: The Cognition of Verbal Irony

ABSTRACT— Verbal irony is nonliteral language that makes salient a discrepancy between expectations and reality. For researchers who study verbal irony, a critical question is: How do we grasp the meaning of ironic language? The parallel-constraint-satisfaction approach holds promise as an answer to this question. By this account, multiple cues to ironic intent, such as tone of voice, incongruity, and knowledge of the speaker, are processed rapidly and in parallel and this information is coordinated with the utterance itself in order to construct a coherent interpretation that is the best fit for the activated information. Recently, research with individuals who struggle with irony comprehension (typically developing children, individuals with autism-spectrum disorder, individuals with brain injury) has provided new clues about the complex process by which ironic meaning is inferred.     

You'll Never Believe This: Irony and Hyperbole in Expressing Surprise

Three experiments compared how people comprehend irony and hyperbole as expressing surprise. Experiment 1 demonstrated that, when irony and hyperbole are used together, they express more surprise than if either is used alone. There was no difference between the degree of surprise expressed by hyperbole and irony, although both expressed more surprise than literal commentary. Experiment 2 revealed that, when a speaker has exaggerated about some unexpected event, as much surprise is expressed by very slight, realistically possible hyperbole as by outlandish, impossible hyperbole. In a third experiment the range of possible levels of hyperbole tested in Experiment 2 was shown to cause differences in how easy it was to determine that a speaker was surprised at some turn of events. The results are discussed in terms of theories of irony and hyperbole comprehension.     

Behavior modification in the home: Siblings as behavior modifiers,parents as observers

It was hypothesized that siblings could function as effective behavior change agents for their behaviorally disturbed brothers and sisters within the home environment. Further, it was predicted that parents could be trained to be reliable observers of their children's performance under these circumstances. The results of the study supported both predictions with siblings in two separate families demonstrating their ability to work with their brother or sister within the context of an ABAB reversal design. Parents were also shown to obtain consistently high reliability ratings when compared to outside observers. The judicious use of siblings as behavior modification aides is recommended as a treatment procedure.