Some explorations around metalinguistic reflections on verbal irony during the school years

Abstract

The present study addresses the way in which school-age children and adolescents identify and reflect on verbal irony. To this end, we worked with 30 participants (9, 12 and 15 years old, 10 participants per age group), each of whom was presented with four ironic and two non-ironic written expressions. After reading each text, participants were asked to state what they thought the speaker had meant with the ironic expression, and to provide an explanation for their answers. Our results showed significant differences between age groups in the ability to identify ironic texts and reflect on them using content responses (i. e. related with text content), form (referring to how the text is constructed), and performance (thoughts on the impact of the text on a potential recipient).