Discusses the problem of the British student of French confronted with French humor in classic and modern French literature. (AM)

Suggests a series of exercises designed to help students see the value of concrete writing, to help give new life to metaphors, and to encourage concrete evaluations of abstractions. (TJ)

Shows how digging for details adds richness and new meanings to cliches. Provides student poems resulting from exercises with trite materials. (RL)

Presents 10 short excerpts (translated from Italian) from Gianni Rodari's book "The Grammar of Fantasy: An Introduction to the Art of Inventing Stories." Addresses creative invention, the motif of the fantastic, word choice, recasting fairy tales, and comic effects. (PA)

Presents a three-part exercise that deals with poetic excess: heightened exaggeration of deliberately conflicting ideas. States that part 1 deals with hyperbole, part 2 with paradox, and part 3 with combining hyperbole and paradox in a single poem. Gives examples of students' poems using the technique. (PA)

A proverb explanation task consisting of 24 low-familiarity expressions was administered to 353 individuals (ages 13-79) to examine how patterns of language growth in adults compared to those observed in adolescents. Results indicate performance improved markedly during adolescence and into early adulthood, and then began to decline during the…

A method is presented for helping children who are deaf to comprehend idiomatic expressions. The teaching method involves introducing the idiom, providing examples of proper usage, requiring students to give back examples for the idiom, evaluating comprehension of the idiom, and subsequently reinforcing learning through completion of a worksheet.…

Twelve children, aged 9-19, with severe/profound hearing impairments were instructed to read sentences with similes, metaphors, idioms, and proverbs, and to explain them. Subjects' performance differed significantly from the performance of a control group. Subjects' performance was dependent upon reading level and was variable across chronological…

Three experiments gauging 7- to 10-year-old children's ability to interpret and comprehend figurative language indicated that informative contexts could improve subjects' abilities to perceive idiomatic meanings. Subjects were less able to produce idioms than to comprehend them, but were able to perceive that language can be both figurative and…

Argues that textbooks give little specific advice on the role of figures in discourse, while theorists extol their virtues, leaving instructors torn. Claims that, by examining students' writing, teachers can discover how students employ figures and how figures can be taught. Illustrates with examples of students' writing. (RS)

Elementary and secondary students (N=150) were given a forced-choice task of idiom understanding. Performance on tasks steadily improved with age, and idioms with higher familiarity and transparency were easier for students to understand. Results support the language experience model of figurative language development and the hypothesis that…

This study of the communication effectiveness of 78 adolescents found that emotionally disturbed subjects were characterized by poorer communication and a lack of developmental change from early to late adolescence. Emotionally disturbed adolescents used less figurative information (form, size, color) than normal peers, but similar operative…

Discusses the use of double meanings and figurative language or figures of speech in literature and how confusing it can be for beginning readers. Describes class activities that can help students construct, examine, and extend the meaning of what they read and includes a worksheet, evaluation suggestions, and extension activities. (LRW)

This project draws on Lakoff and Johnson's (1980) work with metaphor analysis to uncover the rhetorical strategies applied by supporters of the English for the Children organization during the 2000 Arizona Proposition 203 campaign. The data were collected from three sources: (a) "The Arizona Republic"; (b) the "East Valley…

The skills debate in many European countries has for many years been preoccupied with the supply of qualified individuals and participation in training events. However, recent case-study work suggests that qualifications and training are partial measures of skill development as most learning arises naturally out of the demands and challenges of…