Abstract

CALDERON GUERRERO, Gabriela; MALDONADO AHUAMADA, Cynthia  and  VERNON, Sofía. Elementary School Students’ Understanding of Metaphors. REDIE [online]. 2017, vol.19, n.2, pp.104-113. ISSN 1607-4041.  https://doi.org/10.24320/redie.2017.19.2.1108.

This paper aims to describe the development of children’s understanding of metaphors and the type of part-whole relationships they are capable of establishing when solving puzzles. The study was carried out with 30 students from a federal elementary school in the state of Querétaro, Mexico: 10 second-year students, 10 fourth-year students and 10 sixth-year students. They were asked to answer four metaphorical puzzles and explain what information they had taken into account to arrive at their answers. The results show that: a) children’s understanding of metaphors increases with their school year, and b) participants from higher years tend to establish more comprehensive and coherent part-whole relationships than students from lower years, which allows them to better understand metaphors in puzzles. The results confirm findings by Calderón (2012) and Calderón, Vernon and Carrillo (2012).

Keywords : Cognition; language; comprehension; development.