Analyzing the process of embodiment metaphor comprehension growth in 2 to 5 years Old Persian language children

Authors
1 PhD student in General linguistics PhD student, Payam-noor University, Tehran, Iran
2 Associate General Linguistics, University of Payam-noor, Tehran, Iran
3 Assistant professor of general linguistics, Payam-noor University, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
Our conceptual system is metaphor based. Children also face this cognitive interaction from the beginning of language acquisition. Accordingly, based on their little knowledge of the environment and vocabularies, they benefit from adult`s metaphorical system.Nowadays children`s knowledge is different from that of Piaget`s time and even after this era. Mass communication, modern toys like X-boxes and tablets all have developed children`s cognitive world. In this field study, sixty 2- to 5- years-old Persian-speaking boys and girls were examined in order to understand the time of comprehension and use of embodied metaphors regarding the variable of age in them. A self-mode test was prepared on the basis of Persian metaphoric phrases and Bialka-pkul`s study (2003). Method: The research method was descriptive-survey and the population consisted of 2-5-year-old children of kindergartens in zones 1, 4, and 20 of Tehran. Sixty monolingual normal girls and boys made the sample. The research results are zeitgeist of complete understanding and relative understanding of embodiment metaphorical expressions and perception content due to the age variant in addition. The result of this study with the results of the Bialka- Pikul (2003) was in line. There is a difference that Bialka-pkul research, study on children from age of 3 years, three month but current research says children from the age of two years have a relative understanding of embodiment metaphorical expressions, this study denotes that perception content increasing due to the age variant and cognitive interest. Result: Response of children to tests questions shows children speech in three distinct cultural groups. Persian -language children's speech in no.1 urban area of Tehran city whom they interaction with nature and their metaphorical expressions derived from natural and pristine words, while (the four) children use the environment words frequently, while (the twenty) use metaphorical expressions derived from adult speech and common phrases and words of Persian language. Different use of metaphoric phrases by children indicate different confederacy of receiving physical realm and the realm of subjective perception and cognitive in three different under study cultural groups. Such knowledge is not unique and represents a significant number of children's cognitive differences in the three under study areas .Results: 2-2.5-year-olds gained the least points (0.4 out of 4) in metaphor understanding and had the most and the least difficulties in color and sound metaphors, respectively, but the other groups got higher points (1.5, 1.3, 2.2, 2.1, 3, orderly). The boys had better understanding than girls although the difference wasn't significant (P>0.05).


Keywords


  1. صادقی، شهلا (۱۳۹2). فرآیند رشد درک شناختی در کودکان ۶ تا ۸ ساله فارسی‌زبان. پایان‌نامه کارشناسی ارشد. تهران: دانشگاه علامه طباطبایی.

  2. گلفام، ارسلان و فرانک رنگین‌کمان (۱۳۸۶). «فراگیری استعاره در کودکان پیش از دبستان» مجموعه‌مقالات هفتمین همایش زبان‌شناسی ایران. تهران: دانشگاه علامه طباطبایی. صص ۷۰۸- ۷۱۸.



    • Bialeka-Pikul, M. (2003). “Metaphors in preschool child thinking about the mind”. Journal Psychology of Language and Communication. Vol. 17. No. 2. pp. 37-47.

    • D’Andrade, R. Y. (2006). A Study of Personal and Culture. Values: American, Japanese, and Vietnams the New York: Palgrave McMillian.

    • Evans, V& Green, M. (2006). Cognitive Linguistics: An Introduction. Edinburgh University press.

    • Fillmore, C. J. (1997). “Scenes- and- frames Semantics”. in A. Zampolli (ed). Linguistics Structures Processing. Amsterdam: North Holland. pp. 55-82.

    • Gibbs, R. W. (1994). The Poetic of Mind: Figurative Thought Language and understanding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    • Gibbs, R. W. (2005). Embodiment and cognitive science. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 

    • Grzywna. K. (2007). Metaphor Comprehension by Preschool Children. M.A, thesis. University of Adama Michiewicza.

    • Lakoff, G. (1987). Women, Fire and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal About the Mind. Chicago: The university of Chicago press.

    • Lakoff, G.(1993). “The Contemporary Theory of Metaphor”. In Metaphor and Thought. (2 nd Edition) Andrew Ortony (Ed). 202- 251. Combridge: Cambridge University Press.



    1.  Lakoff, G.& M. Johnson (1980). Metaphors We Live by. Chicago: Chicago University Press.



    •  Lee D. )2001.( Cognitive Linguistics, An Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    • Piaget, J. W. (1959). The Language and Thought of the Child. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

    • Sharifian, F. (2011). Language and Cultural Conceptualization. Amsterdam: John Benjamin Strauss, Claudia, and Naomi Quinn. (1997). A cognitive Theory of cultural meaning. Cambridge: Cambridge university press.

    • Taylor, I. (1990). Psycholinguistics: Learning and Using Language. Englewood cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

    • Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in Society. Cambridge, Massachusetts Harvard university press.