Children’s Acquisition of Idioms in the English Language

Abstract

Idiomatic comprehension was studied in four groups of 20 subjects each, ages six, nine, and 12 years, and adult. Each subject was read 10 sentences which could be interpreted literally or idiomatically. Following each sentence, the subject chose the two pictures that were closest in meaning to the sentence heard. This procedure generated 800 pairs of selections for analysis. The results indicated a (1) significant difference between literal and idiomatic choices regardless of the subject’s age or the voice of the sentence, (2) significant difference between literal and idiomatic choices as a function of age regardless of the voice of the sentence, and (3) significant voice-by-choice interaction indicating that voice affected the choice of literal or idiomatic picture representations.