Conceptual Domains and the Acquisition of Metaphor

This article explores how increasing knowledge in conceptual domains influences the development of metaphor. Two areas of prior research motivated the current study: The notion that many metaphors involve the juxtaposition of conceptual domains rather than merely the terms explicitly used in the metaphor, and the suggestion that historically, once one novel metaphorical relation is made between two domains, shortly thereafter several other metaphorical relations between those domains will also be used. Children at grades K, 2, and 4 were assessed for their ability to comprehend metaphors between eight different pairs of conceptual domains. The ability to comprehend metaphors emerged roughly at the same time for terms within the same pairs of fields and often at very different times for metaphors from different fields, suggesting that metaphor ability develops on a domain-by-domain basis and as a function of the richness of knowledge in the two domains that are juxtaposed in metaphor. Almost as soon as they are able to produce and comprehend language, children appear to be able to produce and comprehend metaphors. This is the message of recent studies on metaphorical competence in young children (Gardner, 1974; Gentner, 1977; Malgady, 1977). While versions of this view have been suggested for some time (e.g., Chukovsky, 1968), until the last decade or so the The research reported herein was supported by NSF grants BNS79-06200 and BNS 81-02655 to the author. This paper was partially prepared while the author was a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. I am grateful for financial support while at the Center provided by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Exxon Education Foundation, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Many thanks to Kristi Lockhart-Keil for invaluable theoretical and practical help in all stages of this study and to Tom Gilovich, Mike Kelly, and Dick Neisser for making comments on earlier drafts of this manuscript. Thanks also to Karen Mark for a heroic performance in data collection, transcription, and analysis. Correspondence and requests for reprints should be sent to the author at the Department of Psychology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853. Manuscript received May 28, 1985; revision accepted July 12, 1985 73