"Wonderful! We've just missed the bus." - Parental use of irony and children's irony comprehension

PLoS One. 2020 Feb 21;15(2):e0228538. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0228538. eCollection 2020.

Abstract

Irony is one of the linguistic means in which intended and expressed meaning diverge. It serves social-communicative functions, requires the understanding of the speaker's mental state and its comprehension takes place at an advanced stage of language acquisition. In the present study, we investigated 8-year old's irony comprehension and social skills and asked their parents about their preferred use of irony towards their children. We then compared children with the highest scores in irony comprehension test with those with lower scores. The full sample included 46 families from Poland. Results show positive associations between children's levels of irony comprehension and levels of mothers irony use. No such relations were found for fathers. No differences were found in ToM scores between proficient and non-proficient irony comprehenders. Our findings provide a base for future studies to study the use of irony in child-parent talk in more diverse culturally and linguistically diverse populations.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Child
  • Communication
  • Comprehension / physiology*
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Language Development*
  • Linguistics* / education
  • Male
  • Parent-Child Relations* / ethnology
  • Parenting* / ethnology
  • Parenting* / psychology
  • Psychology, Child
  • Psychometrics
  • Social Skills
  • Surveys and Questionnaires
  • Wit and Humor as Topic* / psychology

Grants and funding

The study was funded with the DSM grant, University of Warsaw, awarded to NBJ.European Federation of Psychology Students’ Association organized a meeting where the idea of this research was born. NBJ, KW LW, JP and LP took part in the meeting.