The relation between children’s reading comprehension level and their comprehension of idioms

J. Experimental Child Psychology 90 (2005) 65–87 www.elsevier.com/locate/jecp

The relation between childrenÕs reading comprehension level and their comprehension of idioms Kate Caina,*, Jane Oakhillb, Kate Lemmonc a

Department of Psychology, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester, CO4 3SQ, United Kingdom b School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton, BN1 9QH, UK c School of Psychology, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham, NG7 2RD, United Kingdom Received 10 May 2004; revised 24 September 2004 Available online 5 November 2004

Abstract We report an investigation of 9-year-oldsÕ ability to interpret idioms in relation to their reading comprehension level. We manipulated whether the idioms were transparent or opaque, whether they were real or novel, whether they were presented in isolation or in a supportive narrative context. As predicted, children were better able to explain the meanings of idioms in context than in isolation. The good and poor comprehenders did not differ in their abilities to interpret transparent idioms in context, but the poor comprehenders were significantly worse at using context to work out the meanings of opaque idioms. The explanation task revealed the source of information used by the children to derive nontarget interpretations. We discuss these findings in relation to idiom processing strategies and Levorato and CacciariÕs global elaboration model. Ó 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Idiom comprehension; Reading comprehension; Use of context; Semantic analysis

*

Corresponding author. Fax: +44 1206 873598. E-mail address: [email protected] (K. Cain).

0022-0965/$ - see front matter Ó 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2004.09.003

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Introduction An idiom is a figurative expression that usually can be interpreted literally but that takes a nonliteral meaning when used in a specific context. For example, the literal interpretation of the idiom ‘‘to let the cat out of the bag’’ would be something along the lines of releasing a cat from a sack. In another context, however, the phrase may be used figuratively to mean ‘‘to reveal a secret.’’ Levorato and Cacciari (1995, 1999) proposed that the ability to use contextual information is one of the crucial skills in childrenÕs acquisition of idiomatic meanings. The aim of the current study was to investigate this hypothesis directly by relating childrenÕs ability to comprehend different types of idiom in relation to their reading comprehension level. Idioms are common in both written and spoken language; indeed, 6% to 10% of sentences in (American) reading program books designed for 8- to 12-year-olds contain idiomatic expressions (Nippold, 1991). The ability to understand the figurative meanings of idioms has an extended period of development; although comprehension of idioms has been demonstrated in children under 10 years of age (Cacciari & Levorato, 1989; Gibbs, 1987, 1991; Levorato & Cacciari, 1992), incomplete understanding of these expressions is still apparent in older children and adolescents (Nippold & Martin, 1989; Nippold & Rudzinski, 1993; Nippold & Taylor, 1995, 2002) and moderate age-related improvements in adultsÕ ability to explain the meanings of idioms are evident between 19 and 55 years of age (Nippold & Duthie, 2003). In addition, the interpretation of figurative language presents particular difficulties to children with learning disabilities and language comprehension problems (Abrahamsen & Burke-Williams, 2004; Dennis & Barnes, 1993; Nippold, 1991). The poorer performance of younger children and those with learning disabilities has been attributed to a tendency to interpret language literally, a piece-by-piece linguistic processing style, and/or a delay in the development of the pragmatic language skills needed to recognize the difference between what was read (or spoken) and the intended meaning (Levorato, 1993; Levorato & Cacciari, 1995). The majority of research into idiom comprehension has been conducted within a developmental framework. This work has demonstrated the importance of three factors in idiom comprehension: familiarity, transparency, and context. The findings have been interpreted in relation to childrenÕs developing comprehension skills (e.g., Levorato & Cacciari, 1995, 1999). In this article, we explore how independent measures of text processing skills influence the comprehension of idioms in relation to these three factors. We review the developmental literature first before considering how text and discourse processing skills might account for age-related improvements in idiom comprehension. The development of idiom comprehension Idiom familiarity has been defined as ‘‘how frequently an idiom occurs in the language’’ (Nippold & Taylor, 1995, p. 427). Children, adolescents, and adults find that more familiar idioms are easier to understand than less familiar ones (Levorato & Cacciari, 1992; Nippold & Rudzinski, 1993; Nippold & Taylor, 1995, 2002; Nippold,

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Moran, & Schwarz, 2001; Schweigert, 1986). Familiarity effects have been interpreted within a ‘‘language experience’’ hypothesis of figurative development, which posits that children learn the meanings of idioms when they encounter them in written and spoken contexts (Nippold & Taylor, 2002). Clearly, exposure to these expressions alone is insufficient to explain developmental improvements. Research in which the transparency of the idioms and the presence of context have been manipulated sheds light on the language processing mechanisms that might underlie familiarity effects. Transparency (or semantic analyzability) refers to the degree of agreement between the literal and figurative meanings of an idiom. An example of a transparent idiom is ‘‘to get away with murder.’’ Its figurative sense (‘‘to escape punishment for something serious’’) can be derived from the literal interpretation of the words in the phrase. The sense of opaque idioms, such as ‘‘to be wet behind the ears’’ (meaning ‘‘to be young and inexperienced’’), cannot be inferred from the individual words in the phrases or actions they describe. The transparency of idioms influences how adults process them (Gibbs & Nayak, 1989; Gibbs, Nayak, & Cutting, 1989; Titone & Connine, 1999). It also facilitates idiom comprehension between 5 and 17 years of age; idioms are easier to understand when there is a close relation between their literal and figurative senses (Gibbs, 1987, 1991; Levorato & Cacciari, 1999; Nippold & Taylor, 1995, 2002). These findings suggest that young children are able and likely to perform some semantic analysis of idiomatic expressions. Idioms that are presented in supportive narrative contexts are easier to understand than are those presented in isolation (Ackerman, 1982; Cacciari & Levorato, 1989; Gibbs, 1987, 1991; Levorato & Cacciari, 1995; Nippold & Martin, 1989). Context might facilitate the interpretation of figurative language by providing the necessary semantic information from which the reader (or listener) can extract or infer the appropriate sense of the expression. It may be more important for less common idioms whose meanings are not yet fully known, particularly for unfamiliar opaque idioms whose meanings are not fully derivable through semantic analysis of the phrases. When an idiom is unfamiliar and its meaning is not known, there are two text processing strategies that can aid in its interpretation: semantic analysis (if the idiom is transparent) and inference from context (if present). Levorato and Cacciari (1995, 1999) proposed that these two strategies are important at different stages in the development of figurative competence. In these researchersÕ theoretical framework, the global elaboration model, the ability to relate the meanings of idioms to the contexts in which they appear is the crucial factor in acquiring and understanding idioms (and other forms of figurative language). As children move from a piece-by-piece style of processing language and begin to strive for coherence in sequences of text and discourse, their developing comprehension skills enable them to appreciate that a literal interpretation of an idiom is inconsistent with the context within which it occurs. ChildrenÕs developing inferential skills enable them to derive the meanings of idioms from the context in which they are presented. The ability to analyze an idiomatic expression and derive a figurative meaning from its component parts is a strategy that may be used on its own or in conjunction with contextual analysis, perhaps as an additional check of a meaning inferred from

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context. According to the global elaboration model, young childrenÕs difficulties with idioms derive from the nonglobal nature of their language processing and not simply from difficulties with semantic and syntactic processing or lack of knowledge of particular expressions. Within this framework, the acquisition of idiom meanings can be considered a constructive process. Even if the meaning of an expression has been taught to a child directly, the ability to fully understand and use the expression might require repeated exposure to the phrase in considerate and supportive contexts from which information about its appropriate use and precise interpretation can be extracted (Levorato, 1993). Levorato and CacciariÕs early research focused on the comprehension of transparent idioms (e.g., Cacciari & Levorato, 1989; Levorato & Cacciari, 1992, 1995). This work demonstrates the facilitatory effects of context, but it cannot distinguish between the use of semantic analysis alone (in isolation) and its use in combination with inference from context. To compare the importance of these two processing strategies, Levorato and Cacciari (1999) investigated 7- and 9-year-oldsÕ comprehension of transparent and opaque idioms in and out of context using a multiple-choice task. The older children chose idiomatic interpretations for more than 90% of the transparent items in both presentation conditions, but their comprehension of the opaque idioms was facilitated by context. Younger childrenÕs understanding of both types of idiom improved with context. Levorato and Cacciari concluded that children use supportive context to interpret idioms early on in development and acquire the strategy of semantic analysis later. However, because different children participated in the two conditions, no control was possible for an individualÕs knowledge. The out of context scores indicate some knowledge of the idiomsÕ meanings in this age range in that 7-year-olds were significantly more likely to choose the correct interpretations of the opaque (and thus semantically nonanalyzable) idioms than were a group of 6-year-olds (42% vs. 21% correct). The additional boost from context for the poor comprehenders (7%) was slight in comparison. Prior knowledge might explain younger childrenÕs performance to a greater extent than does processing skills such as use of context. The sets of semantically analyzable and nonanalyzable idioms used by Levorato and Cacciari (1999) were judged by adults to be equally familiar to children, and it would be difficult to obtain accurate familiarity ratings from such young children. In other studies, however, familiarity ratings obtained by different age groups of children, and also between children and adults, have been found to differ significantly (Nippold & Rudzinski, 1993; Nippold & Taylor, 2002). Furthermore, transparency and familiarity might not have been entirely independent of one another in other sets of idioms. Nippold and colleagues (Nippold & Rudzinski, 1993; Nippold & Taylor, 1995, 2002) investigated the effects of transparency and familiarity on 11- to 17-yearoldsÕ idiom comprehension. They used a direct method of estimation by asking the adolescents to rate their own exposure to the expressions and the overlap between each idiomÕs figurative and literal meaning. Nippold and Taylor (1995) reported a moderate correlation (r = .54) between these two factors—transparency and familiarity—and the researchers were unable to create discrete sets of high-, low-, and moderate-familiarity idioms with equal numbers of transparent and opaque items.

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Clearly, not all opaque idioms are less familiar than transparent ones. However, when knowledge of idioms is not controlled, interpretation of the results is difficult. For example, older childrenÕs superior comprehension of idioms might arise from prior knowledge rather than from more advanced processing skills. Any advantage for transparent idioms over opaque idioms could arise through greater familiarity with these expressions rather than through an ability to analyze the components of the phrases. This review demonstrates that we need to determine the role of semantic analysis and inference from context separately from the influence of prior exposure to understand further the processes that underlie childrenÕs acquisition and comprehension of idioms. To get around the possible confound of familiarity and prior knowledge, as well as the difficulty in obtaining accurate estimates of childrenÕs familiarity with the expressions, we included both novel and real idioms in our study. To examine the influence of different processing skills, we compared the same childrenÕs comprehension of transparent (semantically analyzable) and opaque (semantically nonanalyzable) idioms presented with and without supportive narrative contexts. These unique features of our study enabled us to investigate the use of context while controlling for childrenÕs performance in isolation; this would indicate prior knowledge of the expression and/or the ability to derive an interpretation through semantic analysis. Relations between idiom comprehension and text comprehension The focus of recent work has shifted from a developmental framework to investigations of the relation between understanding of idioms and text comprehension. Within the global elaboration model framework, the most obvious way in which idiom comprehension should be related to text processing skill is through the use of context. There is a well-established relation between childrenÕs reading comprehension and their ability to generate inferences from text. For example, when compared with same-aged good comprehenders matched for word reading and vocabulary skills, children with weak reading comprehension are less likely to integrate information between sentences in a text to ensure cohesion (Cain & Oakhill, 1999), generate coherence and elaborative inferences (Cain, Oakhill, Barnes, & Bryant, 2001), and use context to derive the meanings of novel words (Cain, Oakhill, & Elbro, 2003). If use of context is crucial to idiom comprehension, children with poor reading comprehension should be specifically impaired in their ability to use context to facilitate their understanding of idioms. The ability to comprehend the intended figurative meaning of an idiom also depends on the ability to monitor oneÕs unfolding comprehension of a text and appreciate that a truly literal interpretation of a phrase would be inappropriate in the current context. Older children and those with better reading comprehension are better able to monitor their understanding, as measured by inconsistency detection tasks (e.g. Baker, 1984; Oakhill, Hartt, & Samols, 2004). There is preliminary evidence of an association between text comprehension level and comprehension of idiomatic expressions. Nippold and colleagues (2001) found

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that 12-year-olds with good levels of reading and listening comprehension were better able to select the target meanings of idioms presented in short story contexts than were same-age poor comprehenders. However, the shared variance between performance on the idiom task and reading and listening comprehension was low, R2 values = .36 and .30, respectively. Nippold and colleagues speculated that factors other than comprehension ability might explain additional variance in idiom comprehension. One factor that they suggested is transparency, which was not manipulated in their study. One would predict a stronger relation between text comprehension ability and understanding of opaque idioms, whose meanings can only be derived from context, than between text comprehension ability and understanding of transparent idioms, for which a semantic analysis strategy can be used. Another factor to consider is prior knowledge of the idiomsÕ meanings; the good comprehenders rated the idioms as more familiar than did the poor comprehenders. Thus, the good comprehenders not only may have possessed better language processing strategies for deriving the meanings of idioms but also may have had a greater number of exposures to the idioms in which to do so. They may have retrieved, rather than derived, the meanings of some of the idioms. Levorato, Nesi, and Cacciari (in press) explored the relation between reading comprehension and idiom understanding in younger children. They compared the ability of 7- and 9-year-olds with different levels of reading comprehension skill to select the appropriate meanings of idioms presented in context. Performance was accurate, even for the poor comprehenders, and the older better comprehenders performed close to ceiling. Familiarity with the expressions and the use of a multiplechoice task were suggested as two factors that may have facilitated performance. Analysis of the incorrect choices revealed qualitative differences between the groups; the poor comprehenders were more likely to select literal responses than were the better comprehenders, indicating that less attention was given to context. A follow-up of some of the poor comprehenders 8 months later demonstrated that more than half of those who were retested had improved in reading comprehension skill. The children who improved did better on the idiom task, supporting the proposed relation between reading comprehension and understanding of idioms. Levorato and colleaguesÕ (in press) study indicates a relation between text processing skills and idiom comprehension, but some crucial issues are left unresolved. First, it is not possible to relate the findings to comprehension processes because the good and poor comprehenders differed not only in their reading comprehension skills but also in their word reading accuracy and speed. In addition, children with better word reading (as well as comprehension skills) will read more difficult texts and will have many more opportunities for exposure to a range of idioms. In light of the high levels of performance, we cannot rule out the possibility that the better comprehenders were retrieving the meanings of idioms rather than deriving them from context. A comparison of the same childrenÕs ability to interpret idioms in and out of context would enable more accurate measurement of the benefits of context. Second, we can only speculate that the better comprehenders were advantaged due to superior use of context. The researchers did not compare childrenÕs understanding of idioms that could only be interpreted from context (opaque idioms) with those that could be interpreted

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by semantic analysis of the phrases as well (transparent idioms). If poor use of context is the underlying reason for poor comprehendersÕ difficulties with idioms, they should find opaque idioms to be much harder to understand than transparent ones. The current study The current research was designed to investigate how individual differences in text comprehension were related to childrenÕs understanding of idioms in relation to the three factors reviewed: familiarity, transparency, and context. Previous investigations into text processing skill and idiom comprehension have not investigated these factors because they have not controlled for prior knowledge, manipulated the transparency of the expressions, or manipulated the presence or absence of context. The innovative features of our study and the experimental predictions follow. First, we compared idiom comprehension of children with good reading comprehension skill with that of children with poor reading comprehension skill, with the children being matched for their word reading ability and vocabulary knowledge. Thus, any differences on the idiom comprehension task could be directly related to differences in text processing skills rather than more general reading difficulties. Second, we included both real and novel idioms in our study. This manipulation enabled us to study the comprehension of idioms of which children might have prior experience and partial knowledge as well as those to which children had not been exposed previously. Because we were interested in how text processing skill and idiom interpretation strategies affect acquisition of figurative terms, we were particularly interested in childrenÕs performance on the novel idioms. Third, we compared the ability to understand transparent idioms with the ability to understand opaque idioms to investigate the importance of the two processing strategies that are proposed to underlie idiom acquisition: semantic analysis and inference from context. Fourth, we compared the same childrenÕs understanding of idioms in supportive context with their understanding of idioms out of supportive context to look at the relative gain afforded by context and to examine the use of semantic analysis when no context was present. Finally, we used an explanation task, as advocated by Nippold and Rudzinski (1993). It was anticipated that this task would prevent the near ceiling levels of performance found in some work and would indicate childrenÕs processing strategies through qualitative analysis of incorrect responses. We predicted that if childrenÕs comprehension of unknown or unfamiliar idioms is dependent on the use of context, poor comprehenders should experience particular difficulty in interpreting idioms. Second, if poor comprehenders are specifically impaired in their use of context, they should do more poorly on the opaque idioms than on the transparent ones. The presence of context should be most beneficial to good comprehenders. Both groups should do particularly poorly on novel–opaque idioms in isolation, where the internal semantics of the phrases provide insufficient information for accurate interpretations. If poor comprehenders have a tendency to process literally, literal explanations should dominate their incorrect responses; if poor comprehenders are simply poor at using context accurately, incorrect but figurative responses should prevail.

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Method Participants Two groups of 9- and 10-year-olds participated in this study: 14 good comprehenders (6 girls and 8 boys) and 14 poor comprehenders (9 girls and 5 boys). Participants were recruited from urban schools with socially mixed catchment areas in the East Midlands, United Kingdom. The majority of participants were from lower middle-class families. All were Caucasian, spoke British English as their first language, and had no known behavioral problems or learning difficulties. Five tests were used to select participants: the Gates–MacGinitie Primary Two Vocabulary Test (Level 4, Form K) (MacGinitie & MacGinitie, 1989), which measures the ability to read and understand written words out of sentence context; the Neale Analysis of Reading Ability–Revised (Form 1) (Neale, 1997), which measures word reading accuracy in context and reading comprehension; the Graded Nonword Reading Test (Snowling, Stothard, & McLean, 1996), which measures decoding ability; the British Picture Vocabulary Scale (Dunn, Dunn, Whetton, & Pintillie, 1982), which measures receptive vocabulary; and the Word Association subtest from the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals–Revised (CELF-R) (Semel, Wiig, & Secord, 1987), which measures semantic fluency. The Gates–MacGinitie test was administered first as a whole-class group test. The task was to select a synonym, from a set of five synonyms, for the word that was underlined in a phrase. Children who performed near floor or ceiling were excluded from further testing. The remaining 141 children were administered the remaining four assessments individually, according to the guidelines in each relevant manual, in separate sessions. The aim of the selection procedure was to control for the influence of lower level decoding and vocabulary skills on reading comprehension. The 14 poor comprehenders obtained age-appropriate levels on the Neale Analysis measure of word reading accuracy, but the comprehension ages obtained on this assessment were below their chronological ages and at least 12 months below their reading accuracy ages. The 14 good comprehenders also obtained age-appropriate word reading accuracy levels, but their comprehension scores were at or above the levels predicted by their reading accuracy ages. The two groups did not differ significantly on the following: chronological age, Neale Analysis word reading accuracy, Gates–MacGinitie vocabulary, and decoding ability (assessed by the Graded Nonword Reading Test), all ts (26) < 1.0, ps > .20; receptive vocabulary (assessed by the British Picture Vocabulary Scale), t (26) = 1.50, p > .14; and semantic fluency (assessed by the Word Association subtest of the CELF-R), t (26) = 1.10, p > .20. The groups differed on the Neale Analysis measure of reading comprehension, t (26) = 10.71, p < .001. The groups were also matched for the number of stories that they had read from the Neale Analysis measure. Because testing on this assessment stops after a prescribed number of reading accuracy errors, the latter measure was necessary to ensure that the good comprehendersÕ higher comprehension scores did not arise

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simply because they had read more stories and so were asked more comprehension questions. Mean scores are provided in Table 1. Materials: Construction and evaluation A set of 56 idioms was collated, namely, 14 each of real–transparent, real–opaque, novel–transparent, and novel–opaque items. The novel idioms were translations of European idioms for which no British equivalents were known, and the real idioms were real British English idioms cited in The Collins Cobuild Dictionary of Idioms (Sinclair, 2002). Pilot work was conducted with adults to check the categorization of transparent and opaque idioms and the suitability of the in context narratives.1 These data informed the selection of the six idioms of each type for the work with children. Definition task In this task, 12 undergraduate students were shown a list of the 56 idiomatic phrases. Their task was to state whether they had heard each expression before and to write down the meaning of the phrase. All of the real idioms used in further work were ‘‘recognized’’ by at least 10 participants, whereas the novel idioms were recognized by 2 or fewer participants. The mean numbers of target or partially correct definitions (maximum = 12) were as follows: real–transparent = 11.33 (SD = 0.817), real–opaque = 10.33 (SD = 2.25), novel–transparent = 8.67 (SD = 1.86), and novel–opaque = 0.17 (SD = 0.41). There was no significant difference between the mean definition scores for real–transparent and real–opaque idioms, t (10) = 1.03, p > .10, but there was a significant difference between the scores obtained for novel–transparent and novel–opaque idioms, t (10) = 10.92, p < .001. Although it should be possible to determine the meanings of the transparent idioms out of context, the novel–transparent idioms were significantly harder to define than were the real–transparent idioms, t (10) = 3.21, p < .01. The recognition and definition scores are provided in the Appendix. Component rating task A different group of 12 undergraduate students completed a component rating task. For each phrase, the figurative meaning was provided and individual words and/or groups of words in the phrase were underlined (e.g., ‘‘to skate on thin ice,’’ ‘‘to carry a torch’’ ). The task was to rate the extent to which the underlined components contributed to the figurative meaning on a 5-point scale, where higher scores indicated a stronger contribution. The ratings for each component were averaged.

1

An idiom can be semantically transparent in two ways: (a) because it is quasi-metaphorical in that the literal properties of the referent are relevant and extended to new cases or (b) because a discernible relation exists between the idiomÕs component words and its stipulated meaning. We do not distinguish between these two types of transparent idioms in the current study. Instead, we selected the items rated to be least and most transparent to create two categories, as have other researchers (e.g., Nippold & Taylor, 2002).

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Table 1 Group characteristics (and standard deviations) Skill group

Good comprehenders (n = 14)

Poor comprehenders (n = 14)

Chronological age (years)

9.80 (3.83) 34.20 (2.75) 109.21 (3.45) 41.43 (7.15) 10.60 (7.05) 19.07 (2.37) 10.70 (9.60) 6.00 (0.00)

9.80 (4.15) 34.00 (2.04) 106.31 (6.30) 38.36 (7.56) 10.70 (6.97) 18.64 (3.88) 7.11 (5.33) 6.00 (0.00)

Gates–MacGinitie vocabulary (maximum = 45) British Picture Vocabulary Scale (standardized scores) CELF-R Word Association subtest Neale Analysis word reading accuracy Graded Nonword Reading Test Neale Analysis reading comprehension Number of stories

Note. Standard deviations are in parentheses. Where appropriate, ages are given as years and months (with standard deviations in months). The reading accuracy and comprehension scores are the age-equivalent scores provided in the Neale Analysis of Reading Ability–Revised, and the number of stories refers to the stories that were completed during this assessment.

The mean ratings for the items used with children were as follows: real–transparent = 3.49 (SD = 0.146), real–opaque = 2.55 (SD = 0.148), novel–transparent = 3.33 (SD = 0.306), and novel–opaque = 1.85 (SD = 0.398). The mean ratings for each idiom are provided in the Appendix. The six real–transparent and six real–opaque expressions were chosen to differ in their mean component ratings, t (10)= 10.98, p < .001. The mean component rating for the real–transparent idioms was not significantly higher than that for the novel– transparent idioms, t(10) = 1.20, p > .10, indicating that both real–transparent and novel–transparent idioms were similarly interpretable from their component parts. However, the mean component rating for the real–opaque idioms was significantly higher than that for the novel–opaque idioms, t (10) = 4.02, p < .01. The higher than expected component ratings for the real–opaque idioms may have been influenced by the ratersÕ familiarity with the real expressions. In context explanation task The explanation task was similar to that used in previous research on idiom understanding (e.g., Gibbs, 1991; Levorato & Cacciari, 1995; Nippold & Martin, 1989; Nippold & Rudzinski, 1993). Short narratives were written for each idiom (including two stories for the transparent idioms ‘‘to skate on thin ice’’ and ‘‘to cross swords with someone’’ that were modified from a previous study by Nippold & Taylor, 1995). These narratives provided a suitable context for interpreting the idiomatic phrase. An example is given in Table 2. These stories were given to 12 adults who

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Table 2 Example of idiom story with questions Idiom To get away with murder Sarah was playing with her Frisbee in the lounge. By accident, she hit one of mumÕs best vases. Mum heard the noise and rushed in. She didnÕt notice Sarah and her Frisbee. She just saw Rover, their dog, and the vase on the floor in pieces. ‘‘Bad dog!’’ she shouted. ‘‘YouÕve broken my favourite vase.’’ Sarah had got away with murder. Literal questions What was Sarah playing with? What was the dog called? Idiom question What does it mean when it says that ‘‘Sarah had got away with murder’’?

had not participated in the previous pilot work. Their task was to write down the meaning of the idiom. With one exception, 11 or more adults provided the target idiomatic or an appropriate figurative response for each item (see Appendix). The exception was a novel–opaque idiom story for which 5 adults provided a nontarget response. The story context was modified to support the target interpretation of the idiom more strongly before presentation to children. Experimental procedure ChildrenÕs comprehension of idioms was assessed using an explanation task in which they had to provide verbal interpretations of the idioms. There are several reasons for choosing an explanation task. First, the options given in multiple-choice tasks could bias responding unless distractor items were carefully constructed (as noted by Nippold & Taylor, 1995). Second, a multiple-choice task might tap the ability to match a phrase to a given interpretation rather than the ability to derive an interpretation from either the phrase or the context itself. Third, multiple-choice tasks might overestimate ability and lead to ceiling levels of performance (as suggested by Levorato et al., in press). Finally, and important for current purposes, the responses produced in an explanation task can reveal the source of information on which a nontarget interpretation is based and provide insight into the processing strategies used by participants. Idioms in isolation Children were tested individually. They were told the following: I am going to read you a list of short expressions or sayings, for example, ‘‘itÕs raining cats and dogs.’’ For each one, I would like you to say whether you have heard it before and what you think it means. For example, when we say ‘‘itÕs raining cats and dogs,’’ we mean that itÕs raining very hard. DonÕt worry if you havenÕt heard some of these sayings beforesome of them have been made up. DonÕt worry if youÕre not sure what some of these sayings mean-just tell me what you think they might mean.

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There was one practice phrase for which corrective feedback was given. Idioms in context The idioms in context condition was administered a minimum of 4 weeks after the isolation condition. Children were told that they were going to listen to some stories and would be asked a question after each story. The question required children to explain the meaning of the idiom. There was one practice story for which corrective feedback was given. After each story, children were also asked two memory questions about facts in the text (for an example text and questions, see Table 2). For both conditions, the items were presented in the same order for each child, distributed so that the same type of idiom (real–transparent, real–opaque, novel– transparent, or novel–opaque) did not appear consecutively.

Results Idioms in isolation Recognition data Few children reported having heard a novel idiom previously, but several of the real idioms were familiar to the children, indicating that this simple recognition measure was sensitive (for means, see Table 3). A two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted treating real idioms as the dependent variable with skill group (good or poor) and transparency (transparent or opaque) as factors. There was a main effect of skill group because the good comprehenders were more likely to recognize these expressions, F(1, 26) = 4.31, p < .05 (partial g2 = .142). There was a tendency for transparent idioms to be recognized more often than opaque idioms, F(1, 26) = 3.60, p < .07 (partial g2 = .122). The interaction was not significant, F(1, 26) < 1.0, p > .20. Explanation scores The explanations of idioms were classified by the first and third authors, who were blind to the skill group of each participant, using a system similar to that developed by Nippold and colleagues (Nippold & Martin, 1989; Nippold & Rudzinski, 1993). Examples are provided in Table 4. There was a good level of agreement (86%), and Table 3 Total number of idioms recognized in the isolation condition (maximum = 6) Group

Real Transparent

Opaque

Transparent

Opaque

Good comprehenders

2.50 (1.50) 1.64 (1.08)

1.79 (1.05) 1.29 (0.83)

.429 (.755) .286 (.611)

.143 (.363) .214 (.578)

Poor comprehenders

Note. Standard deviations are in parentheses.

Novel

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Table 4 Examples of responses by category Expression: to get away with murder Idiomatic The response demonstrates an understanding of the figurative meaning, for example, ‘‘she wasnÕt punished for being naughty’’ (in context), ‘‘youÕve done something really bad and nobody finds out and you donÕt get told off’’ (out of context) Related figurative The response indicates a partial understanding of the figurative meaning, for example, ‘‘you let someone else take the blame’’ (in context), ‘‘you put the blame on someone else’’ (out of context) Unrelated figurative The response was not related to the actual meaning of the idiom, for example, ‘‘she had a bit of bad luck’’ (in context), ‘‘youÕre innocent’’ (out of context) Literal The response reflects the concrete meaning of a word in the expression, for example, ‘‘she got away quickly’’ (in context), ‘‘you murder someone and run away from the cops’’ (out of context) Repetition The response is a repetition of the phrase itself, for example, ‘‘to get away with murder’’ (out of context), or a repetition of part of the story (in context) DonÕt know The child responded ‘‘donÕt know’’ or something similar

disagreements were resolved by discussion. Idiomatic responses were awarded two points, and figurative plausible responses were awarded one point. The sum of these scores for each condition (real–transparent, real–opaque, novel–transparent, and novel–opaque) was calculated. The scores were very low, indicating that even if children reported hearing an idiom before, they were unlikely to know its meaning (for means, see Table 5). The floor level of performance for the novel–opaque idioms confirms their classification. A score of zero indicates no knowledge or ability to determine meaning. A series of one-sample t tests for each comprehender group was conducted on the explanation scores obtained for each type of idiom (with the exception of the novel–opaque items) to test each groupÕs ability to interpret these phrases out of context. Zero was used as the constant against which to compare performance. Because of the number of comparisons to be made, all ps > .008 should be treated with caution. For the good comprehenders, all scores were significantly greater than zero,

Table 5 Scores (and standard deviations) obtained for idioms in and out of context Context and group

Out of context

Real

Good comprehenders Poor comprehenders

In context

Good comprehenders Poor comprehenders

Novel

Transparent

Opaque

Transparent

Opaque

1.29 (1.26) 0.64 (0.93) 4.86 (1.96) 4.64 (1.91)

1.14 (1.35) 0.43 (0.85) 6.07 (2.76) 3.85 (2.14)

1.86 (1.92) 1.43 (1.55) 4.07 (2.30) 4.00 (2.04)

0.14 (0.36) 0.00 (0.00) 4.50 (2.03) 2.50 (1.87)

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indicating either knowledge of the idiom or an ability to derive the meaning: real– transparent, t(13) = 3.80, p < .003; novel–transparent, t(13) = 3.62, p < .004; and real–opaque, t(13) = 3.17, p < .008. For the poor comprehenders, the scores obtained for the novel–transparent idioms were significantly above zero, t(13) = 3.44, p < .005, but the comparison for the real–transparent items failed to reach our stringent level of significance, t(13) = 2.59, p < .03, and the comparison for the real–opaque idioms was not significant, t(13) = 1.88, p = .08. Recognition of real–transparent idioms was significantly correlated with the explanation scores, r(26) = .505, p < .01. The correlation for real–opaque idioms was marginally significant, r(26) = .370, p = .052. Idioms in context Explanation scores The scores awarded for idiomatic and figurative responses were analyzed in a three-way ANOVA where skill group (good or poor) was a between-subjects factor and familiarity (real or novel) and transparency (transparent or opaque) were within-subjects factors. We did not conduct a four-way ANOVA with context (present or absent) as a factor because the children, as predicted, could not explain the novel– opaque idioms out of context. The mean scores are reported in Table 5. There was a main effect of skill group, F(1, 26) = 5.00, p < .04 (partial g2 = .161), because good comprehenders obtained higher scores than did poor comprehenders (means = 4.88 vs. 3.75). There was also a highly significant effect of real versus novel, F(1, 26) = 10.37, p < .004 (partial g2 = .285), because real idioms were easier than novel ones (means = 4.86 vs. 3.77). The effect of transparency was not significant, F(1, 26) = 0.14, p > .20. There was a significant interaction between skill group and transparency, F(1, 26) = 5.16, p < .05 (partial g2 = .166). The interaction arose because the good and poor comprehenders did not differ in their ability to interpret transparent idioms (Ms = 4.46 and 4.32, respectively, t(26) < 1.0), but they did differ for opaque items (Ms = 5.29 and 3.18, t(26) = 2.96, p < .01, d = 1.32). No other interactions reached significance, all Fs < 1.4, ps > .20. Memory scores The total number of correct memory questions per ability group was calculated (maximum = 48). Performance was very high (Ms = 42.57 and 40.29, SDs = 3.25 and 4.68, for good and poor comprehenders, respectively) and the scores did not differ, t(26) = 1.50, p > .15. Analysis of idiomatic responses: Difference scores The scores obtained for the interpretation of idioms in isolation were subtracted from those obtained in context to determine the degree of facilitation from context. These difference scores were entered into a three-way ANOVA as above. The main effects of skill group and transparency did not reach significance, F(1, 26) = 2.40,

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p > .13, and F(1, 26) = 2.18, p = .15, respectively. Importantly, there was a significant interaction between these two factors, F(1, 26) = 4.59, p < .05 (partial g2 = .150), comparable to the one obtained in the analysis of the in context scores. In line with predictions, the good comprehenders benefited more from the presence of context for opaque idioms than did the poor comprehenders. There was a highly significant effect of familiarity, F(1, 26) = 8.61, p < .007 (partial g2 = .249). Performance on the real idioms improved to a greater extent than did performance on the novel idioms with the presence of context (Ms = 3.98 vs. 2.91). No other interactions reached significance, all Fs < 1.0, ps > .20. To directly test the relation between reading comprehension skill and use of context, we compared good and poor comprehendersÕ difference scores for the novel idioms only, where prior knowledge of the expressions was not an influencing factor. The two groups did not differ in their ability to interpret novel–transparent idioms, t(26) < 1.0, p > .20, but they did differ on the novel–opaque comparison, t(26) = 2.60, p = .02, d = .984.

Analysis of errors The proportion of remaining responses that were either unrelated figurative responses, literal interpretations, restatements of the phrases or contexts, or ‘‘donÕt know’’ responses was calculated for both presentation conditions (in and out of context). Idioms in isolation Responses were distributed across the response categories for the good and poor comprehenders, respectively, as follows: unrelated figurative, 36.7% and 30.9%; literal, 32.6% and 27.9%; restatements, 4.4% and 1.6%; and ‘‘donÕt know’’ responses, 26.3% and 39.6%. The proportion of remaining responses that were classed as unrelated figurative was entered as the dependent variable in a three-way ANOVA as in prior analyses. There was a significant main effect of transparency, F(1, 26) = 10.01, p < .004 (partial g2 = .342), which arose because this response type was more likely for transparent idioms than for opaque ones (Ms = .421 and .291). No other main effects or interactions were significant, all Fs < 1.0, all ps > .18. Idioms in context Responses were distributed across the response categories for the good and poor comprehenders, respectively, as follows: unrelated figurative, 75.1% and 54.5%; literal, 1.8% and 2.6%; restatements, 10.2% and 16.2%; and ‘‘donÕt know’’ responses, 12.9% and 26.7%. The proportion of remaining responses that were classed as unrelated figurative was entered as the dependent variable in an ANOVA as above. The data of three children were excluded from this analysis because they had produced six figurative or idiomatic responses for one condition. There were main effects for skill group, F(1, 23) = 4.89, p < .05 (partial g2 = .175); familiarity, F(1, 23) = 4.95, p < .05 (partial g2 = .176); and transparency, F(1, 23) = 4.25, p = .05 (partial

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g2 = .156). This response type was made more often by good comprehenders than by poor ones (Ms =.751 and .545), and it occurred more frequently for transparent idioms than for opaque ones (Ms =.693 and .603) and for real items than for novel ones (Ms = .699 and .598). No interactions were significant, all Fs < 1.6, all ps > .20.

Discussion The reported study is the first to investigate the relation between childrenÕs comprehension of idioms in relation to their reading comprehension level while controlling for childrenÕs familiarity with the expressions and their general reading skill and word knowledge (cf. Levorato et al., in press; Nippold et al., 2001). These findings contribute to our knowledge about childrenÕs processing of idioms by demonstrating a specific link between text comprehension and the ability to derive accurate figurative interpretations of idioms. Furthermore, the manipulations of the presence or absence of a supportive context and of the type of idiom (transparent or opaque) provide new and important information about the processing strategies that children can use to derive the meanings of these expressions and their relative importance. Our unique use of novel idioms allows these findings to be related to the language processes used to acquire the meanings of idioms. The findings relating to familiarity, transparency, and context are discussed in relation to the language experience hypothesis and the global elaboration hypothesis in turn. Children were slightly more likely to recognize real–transparent idioms than to recognize real–opaque ones when presented out of context. This observation is in line with previous studies that have found slightly higher familiarity ratings for transparent idioms than for opaque ones (Nippold & Rudzinski, 1993; Nippold & Taylor, 2002). A comparison between the recognition data and the out of context explanation scores, however, demonstrates that simply having heard an expression previously does not necessarily entail knowing its meaning. The difference scores revealed that when the ability to interpret idioms out of context (and thus prior knowledge) was controlled, real idioms were better understood than were novel ones. In context, real idioms were more likely to be interpreted correctly than were novel expressions. This finding supports the language experience hypothesis of idiom acquisition, which proposes that the meanings of idioms are acquired when children encounter these expressions in written and spoken contexts (Nippold & Taylor, 2002). Knowledge of an idiomÕs meaning may be built up gradually over several exposures as children use the semantic analysis and/or exposure to context to derive meanings for unfamiliar and unknown expressions. In our study, children were not able to provide definitions for all of these items in isolation. The advantage of real idioms over novel ones in context may have arisen because the children had a partial but incomplete understanding of the sense of particular real expressions, for example, whether they indicated positive or negative actions. This information might not be immediately apparent from the words in the phrases (e.g., ‘‘to go to pot,’’ ‘‘to carry a torch’’ ) and might not have been sufficient to interpret the idioms accurately when presented alone. However, a supportive context might activate this knowledge

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and facilitate comprehension. We suggest that, to better understand the process of idiom acquisition, researchers need to control for familiarity by using novel expressions, as we did in this study. Exposure to an idiom does not in itself provide an explanatory mechanism for how its meaning is acquired. The best-developed model of idiom comprehension is the global elaboration model (Levorato & Cacciari, 1995, 1999), which relates agerelated gains in idiom competence to the development of language processing skills, namely semantic analysis and use of context. We compared comprehension of transparent and opaque idioms to investigate childrenÕs use of these two different processing strategies: semantic analysis of the phrase and inference from context. When presented in isolation, both good and poor comprehenders were able to provide appropriate meanings for some of the novel–transparent idioms. Thus, both groups were able to derive figurative meanings from the words or actions described by the idioms, indicating that the poor comprehendersÕ semantic analysis skills had developed in line with their chronological ages. It should be noted that very few novel–transparent idioms were interpreted accurately when the idioms were presented out of context. However, analysis of the error data revealed that nearly one third (30%) of incorrect responses in isolation were ones where the participants performed minimal semantic analysis of the phrases, focusing on the concrete meanings of particular words in the phrases (literal responses). This finding confirms previous results (e.g., Levorato & Cacciari, 1999) that showed that 9- and 10-year-olds are able to use semantic analysis to derive meanings of idioms. Interpretation of transparent idioms was greatly facilitated by context. Children were better able to derive appropriate meanings of these expressions when two sources of information were available: the story context and the internal semantics of the phrases. These findings support one of the central proposals of the global elaboration model, namely that an ability to relate the interpretation of the phrase to the story context is crucial to idiom comprehension. This conclusion is supported by analysis of childrenÕs performance on the opaque idioms, which could only be interpreted by inference from the text (or knowledge). Explanations of opaque idioms were more accurate in the presence of context. However, as predicted, the poor comprehendersÕ performance on the opaque idioms was worse than that of the good comprehenders. Thus, there is direct evidence that superior comprehension of idioms is related to text processing skills and use of context. Children with poor reading comprehension have well-established difficulties with inference from context in other areas of text and discourse processing (Cain & Oakhill, 1999; Cain et al., 2001, 2003). This finding demonstrates further their fundamental difficulty in using context to support comprehension. There are two speculative conclusions to be drawn from these findings in relation to the strategies used in the acquisition of an idiom meaning. First, inference from context and semantic analysis appear to develop, to some extent, independently. Second, use of context appears to be the primary factor associated with figurative competence, as set out in the global elaboration model. We examined the possibility that group differences on the idiom explanation task might have arisen due to qualitative differences in the good and poor comprehendersÕ

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processing strategies other than differences in their use of context or semantic analysis skills. For example, Levorato et al. (in press) found evidence that poor comprehenders have a tendency to interpret idioms literally. We found no evidence of this processing style in the poor comprehenders in this study: Literal responses accounted for 33% of the good comprehendersÕ incorrect responses and 28% of the poor comprehendersÕ incorrect responses when idioms were presented in isolation, and they accounted less than 6% of the errors made by either group when context was present. The predominant incorrect response when context was present indicated a failure to use the context appropriately. This error was more commonly made by good comprehenders than by poor ones. Another reason for group differences could be differences in pragmatic skills: Children with pragmatic deficits have widely documented difficulties with nonliteral language. However, we have no reason to believe that the poor comprehenders in this study experienced subtle pragmatic deficits. The teachers of the participating children completed two subscales of BishopÕs (1998) ChildrenÕs Communication Checklist (original research version). These subscales, which assessed the coherence of childrenÕs communications and their use of conversational context, were the ones most likely to be related to poor comprehension of discourse. We have data for the 14 good comprehenders and for 13 children in the poor comprehenders group. Their scores did not differ significantly: coherence subscale t(25) = 1.04, context subscale t(25) = 1.53, both ps > .10. Furthermore, the poor comprehendersÕ performance on the novel–transparent idioms indicated that they did not experience general problems with their interpretations of figurative expressions. They appeared to be aware that the literal interpretations did not fit the story context but lacked the strategies to derive appropriate meanings. One reason for the different findings from these two studies concerning the use of a literal processing strategy may be the tasks used to measure idiom comprehension. Abrahamsen and Burke-Williams (2004) compared idiom comprehension in children with learning disabilities on a forced-choice task and an explanation task. Although the learning-disabled children chose a greater number of literal responses in the forced-choice task, their incorrect responses in the explanation task, where a story context was provided, tended to be related to the content of the story. Thus, children who experience difficulties with idiom comprehension do not necessarily have a tendency to make literal interpretations. The use of an explanation task provided an insight into the types of information used by this age group to interpret figurative expressions. The range of responses produced was comparable to those obtained in previous studies with older children (e.g., Nippold & Martin, 1989; Nippold & Rudzinski, 1993), suggesting that children under 10 years of age and adolescents use a similar range of information to derive meanings for idioms with which they are not familiar. The poor comprehenders strove to provide figurative interpretations of the phrases when they were presented in context, and very few children in either group interpreted these expressions literally when context was present. Even when target interpretations were not produced, children were aware that these expressions had nonliteral interpretations. Relative to the good comprehenders, a greater proportion of the poor comprehendersÕ errors in

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context were ‘‘donÕt know’’ responses and repetitions of the stories. The poor comprehenders were less likely to know of, or to engage in, a strategy to derive answers. Other work demonstrates a relation between poor text comprehension and deficient knowledge about strategies for different reading goals (e.g., skimming to find particular facts, reading for a subsequent text) and for remediating comprehension failures (Cain, 1999). There are limitations to the current work. First, explanation tasks are generally regarded as more difficult than multiple-choice tasks because they tax metalinguistic skills (Cacciari & Levorato, 1998). We do not believe that this factor alone can account for the poor comprehendersÕ performance; they were not uniformly less able to provide explanations than were the good comprehenders, and they were clearly able to formulate explanations both in and out of context. Nippold and Taylor (2002) proposed that explanation tasks can provide an insight into childrenÕs thought processes, and we have demonstrated that this task can be used with 9-year-olds and can provide useful information about the processing strategies used to analyze text. It is possible that a multiple-choice task may have revealed or picked up partial knowledge and resulted in better performance. However, the purpose of the explanation task was to provide insight into childrenÕs thought processes and into which parts of the text (if any) children used to derive explanations. In support of this, Abrahamsen and Burke-Williams (2004) found that differences that emerged on an explanation task were not apparent on a forced-choice task. A second limitation is the poor performance for novel–opaque idioms. This finding might arise because children had no partial knowledge of the meanings of these expressions and had to derive the meanings solely from context. Another possibility is that the novel–opaque idioms were less meaningful or less interpretable than the other expressions. The fact that the adults and good comprehenders were able to provide explanations for these expressions suggests otherwise. In addition, although the idioms and their contexts were pilot-tested extensively prior to this experimental work, different contexts were used for individual idioms because they were presented in different stories. In summary, we have shown that the ability to interpret idioms is related to reading comprehension level, supporting Levorato and CacciariÕs (1995, 1999) hypothesis that superior idiom comprehension is related to language processing ability. However, poor comprehenders were not impaired in their ability to interpret idioms per se. They had specific difficulties in using context alone to derive the meanings of opaque idioms. Our findings indicate that the two strategies used to process idioms—semantic analysis and use of context—are independent of one another. We showed that young children are able to interpret novel idioms, supporting the idea that general text processing skills can aid in the acquisition of idiom meaning. Future research in this area should build on the extensive body of knowledge concerning age-related differences in idiom comprehension to determine the language skills that underpin developmental gains in idiom competence. This work should include independent assessments of language skills, such as use of context and semantic analysis, to test models of how idiom meaning is acquired and consolidated.

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Acknowledgments This work was supported by a New Lecturer Grant from the University of Nottingham awarded to the first author. We thank the schools in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire for their participation in this study. We also thank Christina Cacciari, Marilyn Nippold, and an anonymous reviewer for their comments on an earlier draft.

Appendix Idioms (and target meanings) selected for use with children: Results from pilot work with adults

Real–transparent To get away with murder To escape punishment for something serious To leave (somebody) out in the cold To ignore or deliberately exclude somebody To skate on thin ice To do something risky/ dangerous To rock the boat To cause problems or a disturbance To cross swords (with someone) To argue/disagree with someone His bark is worse than his bite His actions are not as bad as his threats Real–opaque To carry a torch To secretly love someone who does not love you To go to pot To go to ruin To throw in the towel To stop trying to do something To be wet behind the ears To be young and inexperienced

Recognition (maximum = 12)

Mean component rating (maximum = 5)

Correct/Partial definitions out of context (maximum = 12)

Correct/Partial definitions in context (maximum = 12)

12

4.0

12

12

11

3.7

12

12

12

3.6

12

12

11

3.6

10

11

11

3.6

11

12

12

3.4

11

12

11

2.8

11

12

10

2.6

7

12

12

2.5

12

12

12

2.5

8

11

(continued on next page)

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Appendix (continued)

To take the biscuit To be even worse than anticipated To beat about the bush To avoid talking about something Novel–transparent To be caught between two fires To be trapped between two difficult choices To run around like scalded pigs To rush about crazily For good hunger there is no hard bread Anything tastes good when you are hungry To shoot sparrows with cannons To use excessive means to fulfil an objective To be drowning in a glass of water To be upset over nothing To try to make a hole in water To try to do something that is impossible Novel–opaque The turtle is shrouded The sky is foggy/cloudy To eat the leaf To keep a secret To pet the horse first To rush (into) something leads to mistakes To be at the green To be broke/out of money To have salt in your pumpkin To be intelligent To whistle in your thumb To be unable to obtain what you want

Recognition (maximum = 12)

Mean component rating (maximum = 5)

Correct/Partial definitions out of context (maximum = 12)

Correct/Partial definitions in context (maximum = 12)

11

2.4

12

12

12

2.4

12

12

1

3.8

8

12

1

3.5

8

12

0

3.4

7

11

2

3.1

11

12

1

3.1

7

11

0

3.0

11

11

0

2.2

1

0

2.1

0

12

0

2.1

0

11

0

1.8

0

12

0

1.8

0

11

0

1.6

0

12

7a

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