Speaker: Dorota Gaskins, Research Fellow, King's College London

Dorota is a postdoctoral research fellow at King’s College London and her current project examines children’s acquisition of metaphors, both in monolingual and bilingual contexts.

Title: “What can child speech reveal about early metaphor knowledge?”

Abstract:

To date, metaphor research has focused largely on the use of figurativity in adults, with less emphasis on young children. As a result, the bulk of knowledge about metaphor acquisition, especially that about early metaphor production, remains philosophically rather than empirically grounded. I propose a method for the analysis of conventional metaphors emerging in child language which is designed to test the current theories of metaphor acquisition. On the one hand, it helps to identify perceptual metaphors which are (at least in theory) sensitive to linguistic, contextual, and cultural input, such as those rooted in perceptual similarity. These metaphors are expected to be mainly quantitatively governed, being driven by linguistic exposure, i.e., input from caregivers and eventually the child’s own emerging linguistic resources. On the other hand, it helps to identify metaphors which (at least in theory) emerge irrespective of linguistic input, such as conceptual metaphors. These metaphors are theorised to be qualitatively sensitive and driven by sensimotor experiences which start to play a role before the onset of speech. By putting input centre stage, I invite analyses which will allow me to determine the extent to which both theories are accurate in their predictions about the role of child-directed speech in early metaphor development. I also demonstrate the metaphors unearthed in the speech of a child studied between the ages of 2;0-3;1.

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