认知与发展心理学研究室知识库

    反语是指使用与本意相反的字面形式表达本意的一种修辞形式，是儿童认知难度最大的间接言语行为之一。目前的研究趋势是从暗示假装理论和二阶心理理论的角度解释儿童的反语理解困难，这种趋势以Winner的观点为代表，认为“二阶心理推论能力的缺乏是儿童反语理解的困难根源”。本研究以168名6-10岁儿童为被试，考察了以下两方面问题:(1)描述6-10岁汉语儿童反语理解能力的发展趋势，(2)分别从错误分析、相关分析、信息提示和知识训练四个角度考察二阶心理推论能力和知识经验在儿童反语理解中的作用。主要研究结果如下:
1.关于儿童反语理解能力的发展，我们发现，儿童反语理解能力的发展表现为从低水平掌握向高水平掌握过渡的发展过程。可以划分为4种水平。学龄前儿童主要处于前理解水平和萌芽水平，入学初期的儿童主要处于直觉水平的  理解。小学一至三年级期间是儿童反语理解水平快速提高的时期，但直至三  年级仍只有40%儿童达到概念水平的理解。
2.关于儿童反语理解的困难根源，我们发现:
    1)含义探测任务上失败的儿童(水平0和水平I儿童)更倾向于把反语误作为“真诚”话语，而不是“欺骗”话语。
    2)在较大数量的正常儿童被试中确认了前人发现的二阶心理推论能力与反语理解之间的相关。但是进一步的分析发现，二阶心理推论能力与反语理解之间的相关关系并非直接的，而是以一阶心理推论能力为中介因素。
    3)关于反语使用者的一阶心理状态信息的提示显著促进了水平。和水平儿童的反语理解，二阶心理状态信息提示对这些儿童没有促进作用。关于事实信息的提示不促进反语理解，但影响错误类型。
    4)关于反语的语言知识训练促进了儿童的反语理解。具备二阶心理推论能力的儿童并不比不具备者从训练中受益更多。不具备二阶心理推论能力的儿童在恰当训练条件后可以完成反语命名任务和含义探测任务。
    根据以上4个方面的实验结果，我们认为，至少就儿童反语理解能力的发生阶段而言，其困难根源主要在于相关知识经验的缺乏，而不在于二阶心理推论能力的不足。

   Irony is a figure of speech in which the intended meaning is the opposite of that expressed by the words used. It is one of the most difficult indirect speech acts for children. Recent researches more and more focused on 2nd-Order Theory of Mind (TOM2) as the reason of children's diffculty in irony comprehension. Objects of the present research was (1) to describe the development of Chinese children's level in irony comprehension; (2) to explore the role of TOM2 and knowledge in children's understanding of irony from 4 approaches, namely mistake analysis, correlation analysis, information prompting, and knowledge training. Results are as follows.
1 .As for the development of children's irony comprehension, we founded that  6-7 years old children were mainly at the level of pre-comprehension or emerging comprehension. 8-years-old children were mainly at the level of intuitive comprehension. There was a growth spurt period between 8一10 years old. But, only 40% children could achieve conception level until 10 years old.
2.   As for the root of children's difficulty in irony comprehension, we founded that: 
    1)  The main type of mistake of children in level 0 or level 1 was to take irony as sincere utterance, other than deceptive utterance.
    2)   Although the correlation between TOM2 and irony comprehension was  confirmed, this relationship was indirect. They were related to each other only at the presence of first order theory of mind.
    3)   The prompt about speaker's 1st order mental state contributed to children's irony comprehension, but prompt about 2nd order mental state was not in effect.
    4)   Knowledge training about irony improved children's irony comprehension. Children with TOM2 did not get more benefit from training than those without.  Children without TOM2  could  be  effectively  improved  by appropriate training.
    Based on results above, we concluded that at least for children in early stage ofirony comprehension, the difficulty was mainly from the lack of knowledge and experience, but not from the lack of second order theory of mind.