The Emergence of the Literal-Metaphorical-Anomalous Distinction in Young Children

VOSNIADOU, STELLA, and ORTONY, ANDREW. The Emergence of the Literal-Metaphorical-Anomalous Distinction in Young Children. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1983, 54, 154-161. Children's ability to distinguish among literal, metaphorical, and anomalous comparisons was investigated. 3-, 4-, 5-, and 6-year-old children, as well as adults, were asked to complete similarity statements choosing 1 of 2 words from (a) a metaphorical/literal word pair alternative, (b) a literal/anomalous word pair alternative, and (c) a metaphorical/anomalous word pair alternative. Selections were also made in a categorization task. Results suggested that even the youngest children could distinguish meaningful comparisons from anomalous ones, while 4-year-old and older children provided data suggesting that they were aware that the terms from the metaphorical comparisons, unlike the literal ones, belonged to different conventional categories. These results were interpreted as indicating that by 4 years children already have some rudimentary metaphorical competence.