比喻认知能力的发展——一项以学龄前儿童为对象的实证研究

Trope ability development:An empirical study of pre-school children

本文从有关现象出发,通过实验来考察比喻认知能力的发展。实验对象为学龄前2-5岁儿童;实验材料分5组图片;调查方式系看图答问,具体探究两个方面的内容:(一)儿童比喻认知能力的总体发展趋势;(二)儿童在明喻和隐喻认知能力上的识辨差别。结果表明,儿童的比喻认知能力和年龄之间呈正相关;儿童在4岁以前的明喻和隐喻认知能力存在显著差异:明喻的认知水平高于隐喻;调查结果同时把儿童的比喻认知年龄从此前学界确认的3岁左右提前到2岁左右。文章最后指出了其他相关研究课题,包括以个案为着眼点观察比喻发展的历时过程。由于这方面的研究报道在国内尚不多见,因此这对进一步从实证角度研究隐喻或其他认知议题具有一定的启示意义。

The present study concerns the process of trope ability development,particularly,the relevance between trope cognition ability development and age difference. The subjects of the experiment are pre-school children. Two aspects are taken into account in the experiment:(i) the general relation between the trope/metaphoric ability development and age variations,and(ii) the different levels of simile and metaphor cognitions. The subjects are pre-school children from ages 2 to 5;the materials include 5 sets of pictures;the experiment undergoes the question-answer procedure to the pictures. The result shows that there does exist a positive relevance between trope/cognition ability and age,and the difference between simile and metaphor cognition levels is neutralized at about 4 years old,before which the simile cognition level is higher than metaphor. The result also suffices that the earliest age of children's Tropic cognition ability should be age 2 rather than the previously decided 3. The paper finally brings out a number of issues for further empirical researches,such as a longitudinal observation of a child's case per se.