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Metaphor and Symbol

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Metaphors We Move By:

Children's Developing
Understanding of Metaphorical
Motion in Typologically Distinct
Languages
a
ŞLeyda Özçalışkan
a
Department of Psychology , University of Chicago
Published online: 05 Dec 2007.

To cite this article: ŞLeyda Özçalışkan (2007) Metaphors We Move By: Children's
Developing Understanding of Metaphorical Motion in Typologically Distinct Languages,
Metaphor and Symbol, 22:2, 147-168, DOI: 10.1080/10926480701235429

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10926480701235429

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 METAPHOR AND SYMBOL, 22(2), 147–168
Copyright © 2007, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Metaphors We Move By: Children’s

Developing Understanding of
Metaphorical Motion in Typologically
Distinct Languages
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ªeyda Özçal
ºkan
Department of Psychology
University of Chicago

This paper examines comprehension of metaphorical motion (e.g., “time flies by”)
among 4- and 5-year-old children, who are learning English or Turkish as their native
language. Results show both cross-linguistic similarities and differences. In both lan-
guages, children can understand metaphors embedded in stories by age 4, and pro-
vide verbal explanations for isolated instances of metaphors by age 5. Moreover, in
both languages, changes in children’s metaphorical ability are indexed by changes in
their gestures. By age 4, children treat metaphorical concepts as physical objects and
produce gestures that convey physical motion; whereas, by age 5, children begin to
convey metaphorical meaning by producing gestures in spaces aligned with the target
domain of the metaphor. Children also differ in their expression of metaphorical mo-
tion in the two languages; children learning English convey manner of motion more
extensively than children learning Turkish. The findings underscore metaphor as an
early emerging cognitive and linguistic ability, and provide further evidence for the
embodied nature of conceptual metaphors.

Across different languages of the world we structure many abstract domains in

terms of motion (Lakoff & Johnson, 1999). At the same time, languages vary con-
siderably in their expression of motion and this variation is explainable by a set of
underlying universal patterns (Talmy, 2000). As such, motion constitutes an im-
portant source domain to observe universal and language-specific patterns in meta-
phor structure. Yet, relatively little is known about how children learn metaphors

Correspondence should be addressed to ªeyda Özçal
ºkan, University of Chicago, Department of

Psychology, 5848 S. University Avenue, Green 215, Chicago, IL 60637. E-mail: seyda@uchicago.edu
 148 ÖZÇALIªKAN

structured by motion (e.g., time flies by) in different languages. In this article, we
examine children’s understanding of metaphorical motion in English and Turk-
ish—the two languages that show distinct typological patterns in expressing mo-
tion—and aim to identify developmental changes and cross-linguistic variation in
children’s early metaphorical ability.

METAPHOR AS SIMILARITY: CHILDREN’S EARLY USES

OF SIMILARITY MAPPINGS
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Three- to 4-year-old children can spontaneously produce novel expressions that

highlight similarities between objects (Billow, 1981; Chukovsky, 1968; Elbers,
1988; Winner, 1979), such as calling a half-peeled banana a flower, or describing a
ship sailing in the distance as taking a bath. Moreover, children of this age can
choose the appropriate match for a similarity mapping from a set of alternatives in
an experimental setting (e.g., a river is like a snake; Billow, 1975; Epstein &
Gamlin, 1994; Mendelsohn, Robinson, Gardner, & Winner 1984; Vosniadou &
Ortony, 1983; Winner, McCarthy, & Gardner, 1980). Children’s performance im-
proves by age 5, at which time they can produce similarity-based explanations
when asked about expressions that involve comparisons between objects (e.g., a
cloud is like a sponge means both clouds and sponges are round and fluffy)
(Gardner, Kircher, Winner, & Perkins, 1975; Gentner, 1988; Malgady, 1977).
Thus, preschool children can both understand and spontaneously produce a va-
riety of expressions based on similarity, an achievement that is considered to be the
earliest form of metaphorical ability in young children (Billow, 1981; Vosniadou,
1987a; Winner, 1979).

METAPHOR AS CROSS-DOMAIN MAPPING:

CHILDREN’S UNDERSTANDING OF MORE
COMPLEX MAPPINGS

Children’s early similarity mapping ability is considered as the first step in the de-
velopment of more complex mapping abilities (i.e., analogical, metaphorical),
which typically involve cross-domain comparisons (Gardner, Winner, Bechhofer,
& Wolf, 1978; Gentner, 1988; Winner, 1979). The mastery of cross-domain meta-
phorical mappings takes several more years (Asch & Nerlove, 1960; Vosniadou,
1987a; Winner, Rosenstiel, & Gardner, 1976), and researchers propose different
views on how children make the transition from early similarity mappings to
cross-domain metaphors.
Some researchers propose a developmental progression from mappings based
on feature-based similarities to mappings based on relational structure (Billow,
 CHILDREN’S DEVELOPING UNDERSTANDING OF METAPHORICAL MOTION 149

1975; Gentner, 1988, Vosniadou & Ortony, 1983). For example, in interpreting the
metaphorical statement, a cloud is like a sponge, 5-year-old children rely on fea-
ture-based similarities in their explanations (both clouds and sponges are round
and fluffy), while older children and adults opt for more relational explanations
(both clouds and sponges contain water; Gentner, 1988). In this view, what drives
development is the shift in relational focus. Children, at all ages, have no difficulty
understanding feature-based commonalities between objects, but it is with increas-
ing age that they begin to understand mappings based on relational structure, and
accordingly, produce explanations that reflect this understanding.
Other researchers plot the development from conceptualizing metaphor as in-
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volving only one domain (typically the source) to a more integrated understanding
of metaphor as involving both source and target domains (Asch & Nerlove, 1960;
Cicone, Gardner, & Winner, 1981; Schechter & Broughton, 1991; Winner,
Rosenthiel, & Gardner, 1976). For example, in interpreting the metaphor, the
prison guard is a hard rock, 6- to 8-year-old children focus exclusively on the
source domain and produce literal interpretations (e.g., the guard has hard mus-
cles), whereas older children and adults consider both the source and target domain
meanings and produce metaphorical interpretations (e.g., the guard was mean and
did not care about the feelings of prisoners; Winner et al., 1976).
Thus, although children can understand and spontaneously produce similarity
mappings by preschool age, the ability to understand more complex metaphorical
mappings, namely those that involve cross-domain comparisons, emerges in late
childhood, somewhere between ages 9 to 12.

METAPHOR AS CROSS-DOMAIN MAPPING:

CHILDREN’S UNDERSTANDING OF METAPHORICAL
MOTION

Most of the earlier research on children’s metaphor comprehension and production

focused on objects and their properties, leaving metaphors based on action mostly
unexplored. However, a recent theory proposes that adults often make sense of
metaphorical language by creating an online simulation of the actions conveyed in
the metaphor (Gibbs, 2006). For example, when asked, adults often report engag-
ing in bodily simulations to interpret metaphorical actions (visualize chewing food
when interpreting “chewing an idea”). Adults also process expressions involving
metaphorical action faster, if they perform or imagine the physical action before-
hand (Gibbs, 2006). As such, metaphors based on action may impose more attain-
able cognitive demands, especially for young children, who rely heavily on
sensorimotor schemas to make sense of the world that surrounds them (Mandler,
1999; Piaget, 1973). The use of bodily experience to understand action metaphors
might render such metaphors easier to learn as compared to other metaphor types
 150 ÖZÇALIªKAN

(i.e., cross-domain metaphors that involve extensions of object properties), thus

leading to an earlier onset of comprehension. An earlier study that examined Turk-
ish-speaking children’s understanding of metaphors structured by motion (i.e., a
subgroup of action metaphors) supported this prediction, marking the onset of
cross-domain metaphor understanding at age 4 (Özçal
ºkan, 2005a). By this age,
children were able to choose the correct meaning for a metaphorical statement
structured by motion (e.g., time flies by) from among forced-choice options, and
by age 5, they could provide verbal explanations for metaphorical expressions
(e.g., time crawls by means it goes slowly giving the person time; Özçal
ºkan,
2005a).
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The present study takes this finding one step further and examines if the devel-
opmental patterns observed for Turkish extend to another language, namely, Eng-
lish. English is a good comparison language because it displays both similarities
and differences from Turkish in its expression of metaphorical motion. Adult
speakers of English and Turkish routinely express many abstract domains in terms
of motion, highlighting motion as a relevant source domain for the young language
learner to think about other abstract concepts. Moreover, both English and Turkish
speakers rely on an identical set of metaphorical mappings to structure an almost
identical set of target domains (e.g., TIME IS MOTION ALONG A PATH, MIND
IS A CONTAINER; Özçal
ºkan, 2003). Nevertheless, because the semantic struc-
ture of English allows easier encoding of manner than Turkish, the two languages
also differ in their expression of motion, particularly in encoding the manner di-
mension (run, crawl; Özçal
ºkan, 2004, 2005b). As a result, English speakers en-
code manner more extensively than Turkish speakers, and do so at a very young
age (~3–4), as shown in children’s narrative descriptions of literal motion (e.g., he
crawls/runs/tiptoes into the room; Özçal
ºkan, in press; Özçal
ºkan & Slobin,
1999).
In this study, we examine comprehension of metaphorical motion among 4- and
5-year-old children, who are learning either English or Turkish as their native lan-
guage. We focus on the target domains of time, ideas, and sickness, which consti-
tute the three domains most frequently structured as motion by adult speakers of
English and Turkish (Özçal
ºkan, 2003). We hold the source domain (motion) and
metaphorical mapping (X IS A MOVING ENTITY) constant, but assess compre-
hension in two ways, once with idiomatic and once with nonidiomatic linguistic
expressions. Our aim is to reveal children’s understanding of a system of meta-
phorical mappings (X IS A MOVING ENTITY) across various target domains
(time, ideas, sickness) and linguistic expressions (idiomatic vs. non-idiomatic).
We expect—in line with Özçal
ºkan (2005a)—that children would understand mo-
tion metaphors at an earlier age than previously shown for metaphors involving ex-
tensions of object properties, given how closely the source domain of motion is
linked to children’s bodily experience. We do not predict language to have an ef-
fect on children’s metaphor comprehension, simply because motion metaphors are
 CHILDREN’S DEVELOPING UNDERSTANDING OF METAPHORICAL MOTION 151

equally frequent in the adult speech in both languages. However, we predict that
there will be an effect of language in children’s expression of the source domain
due to typological differences in the lexicalization of motion in the two languages.
We expect English speakers to express manner of motion more extensively than
Turkish speakers at all ages.

METHOD
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Participants
The participants were 40 monolingual English-speaking and 40 monolingual
Turkish-speaking children at the mean ages 4 and a half (range = 4;0–4;11) and 5
and a half (range = 5;0–6;0), with 20 participants in each age group, along with 20
adult native speakers of each language (M = 20, range = 18–37). The English and
the Turkish data were collected in Berkeley, California, and Istanbul, respectively.
The children were attending preschool and after school programs, serving mostly
upper-middle-class families; the adults were college students. There were roughly
equal numbers of boys and girls or men and women in each age group, except for
the Turkish 4-year-old group, which consisted of 15 girls and 5 boys.

Procedure for Data Collection

The data collection included a warm-up task (only administered to children), a
story comprehension task, and an open-ended interview. Two female experiment-
ers, each a native speaker of either English or Turkish, conducted the interviews in-
dividually with each participant.

Warm-up task. The children were invited to participate in a storytelling

game, and introduced to two puppets (Elmo and Cookie Monster) that would help
them answer questions. The experimenter ran three test trials to show how the pup-
pets would help; these trials also served as a screening task. In the test trial, the ex-
perimenter presented the child with a solid-colored ball and asked the puppets the
color of the ball. Each puppet produced a different color label (The ball is red vs.
The ball is green), and one of the labels matched the color of the ball. The child was
then asked to choose the puppet with the correct answer. The task was repeated
three times with differently colored balls, and children who chose the puppet with
the correct label at least twice continued the study. Only two 4-year-old children
failed the task. Data were gathered from two more children—one per language—
to replace these two children.
 152 ÖZÇALIªKAN

Story-comprehension task. After the warm-up task, the children were

given short stories, each of which included two different instances of a metaphori-
cal mapping. The child first listened to the story while looking at a picture book
that depicted the story characters and events. Then the child was asked to retell the
story and answer a question about the metaphorical mapping. Both puppets an-
swered the question, but only one gave a correct answer. Each puppet gave correct
answers half the time to control for the possibility that children’s choices were
based on color (the puppets were identical except for color). The child was asked to
choose the puppet with the correct answer and justify the choice. Adult data collec-
tion was the same, except for the use of the puppets. A sample stimulus story for
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the target domain of ideas is given here in Example 1:

(1) This is Lucy and this is her mom. Her mom gives Lucy some money and
asks her to buy milk, bread, and eggs from the nearby grocery store. While
Lucy is on her way to the store, she sees a candy seller on the street. She
thinks how delicious the candy looks. Then she sees a balloon man and
thinks how colorful the balloons are. Even though she arrives at the store, a
lot of ideas wander in Lucy’s mind now. The things that her mom wanted es-
cape from her mind. Lucy returns home without buying the groceries her
mom wanted.
Why didn’t Lucy buy the groceries her mom wanted?
Puppet A: Because she forgot what her mom told her to buy. (correct choice)
Puppet B: Because she bought candies with the money. (incorrect choice)

There were six stories, two per target domain. In each target domain, one story
used high-frequency motion verbs (idiomatic verb condition) and the other used
low-frequency motion verbs (nonidiomatic verb condition) to describe the same
metaphorical event. Idiomaticity judgments were based on adult responses in an
earlier study (Özçal
ºkan, 2005b), and the participants were given the stories with
idiomatic verbs first. Prior to data collection, each story was tested for its informa-
tive content without the metaphors, with a separate group of English (N = 81) and
Turkish (N = 60) adult speakers, to make sure that it was the metaphor, not the story
content that allowed participants answer the forced-choice question correctly. For
this, metaphors were removed from the stories, and speakers were asked to read
each story and answer the forced-choice question. Only stories that elicited ran-
dom responses (50% correct, 50% incorrect) were included in the study as stimu-
lus stories.

Open-ended interview. Children were presented with pictures, each of

which depicted a motion event (e.g., a turtle crossing a street). The pictures were
used to introduce a source meaning (i.e., literal motion, such as crossing), and the
child was asked to describe the depicted motion. Following this, the child was
 CHILDREN’S DEVELOPING UNDERSTANDING OF METAPHORICAL MOTION 153

questioned about the metaphorical extensions of the depicted motion. Each child
was questioned about a list of motion types, which was decided separately for each
target domain and language, based on earlier research (Özçal
ºkan, 2005b). The
list contained verbs that were both commonly used (e.g., ideas pass) and never
used by adult speakers (e.g., ideas crawl). A separate interview was conducted for
each target domain, and children were also asked to give a definition of the target
domain at the end. The same procedure was followed with the adults. A sample in-
terview for the target domain of ideas is given here in Example 2:

(2) What is happening here? What is the turtle doing? [child is looking at a
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turtle crossing street]

Let’s say you are playing. Then you remembered something. Can that idea
cross your mind?
(If C says yes) How does it cross your mind?
Can ideas crawl/tumble/etc. through your mind? (verbs not used by adults)
Can ideas pass/run/etc. through your mind? (verbs used by adults)
(If C says yes) How do ideas pass/fly/run/etc. through your mind?
What is an idea? What sort of a thing is it? Can you tell me a little about it?

Coding and Analysis

Comprehension of metaphors in the stories was assessed by two measures. For
their response to the forced-choice question for each story, participants received a
score of 1 (correct) or 0 (incorrect or no response). Total scores in the
forced-choice task were computed for each participant separately for each linguis-
tic form condition (idiomatic vs. non-idiomatic, score range = 0–3). Total scores
were then analyzed by a three-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), with age and
language as the between factors and linguistic form condition as the within factor.
For their justification to each forced-choice response, participants were scored on
a 3-point scale, with a score of 0 (irrelevant or no justification), 1 (incomplete re-
sponse in the right direction), or 2 (valid justification). Irrelevant justifications in-
cluded statements that were outside the story framework (e.g., I chose Cookie
cause he is smart from eating all the cookies). Incomplete justifications referred to
responses that addressed the events within the story framework, but did not tap into
the metaphorical event (e.g., because she was thinking about the balloon). Valid
justifications included responses that explained the metaphor by a literal rephrase
or another metaphorical statement (e.g., because her mind is preoccupied with the
balloons, because other ideas float in her head). Total justification scores were
computed for each participant, separately for each linguistic form condition (score
range = 0–6); the scores were analyzed by a three-way ANOVA, with age and lan-
guage as the between factors and linguistic form condition as the within factor. Af-
ter all justifications were coded by the primary investigator, a randomly chosen
 154 ÖZÇALIªKAN

20% of the data for each age and language was coded by another coder who was
blind to the participant’s age. The Cohen’s kappa for intercoder reliability was 0.84
for English and 0.85 for Turkish. We also computed the number of narrative repro-
ductions that had metaphorical expressions (e.g., idea flies by) for each participant
(score range = 0–6) and analyzed the scores with a two-way between-subjects
ANOVA (age × language).
In the open-ended interview, children’s performance was assessed by the fre-
quency of their “no” responses to acceptable motion types. The acceptability of a
motion type was based on the adults’ responses: Motion types that led to “yes” re-
sponses at a rate of 50% or higher for a target domain were considered as accept-
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able motion types to describe that domain in that language, and motion types that
led to “yes” responses at a rate of 49% or lower for a target domain were consid-
ered unacceptable motion types for that domain in that language. The number of
no responses was analyzed by an ANOVA, with two between-subjects factors (age
× language).
Cross-linguistic differences in lexicalization patterns between the two lan-
guages were analyzed by computing the total number of different types of motion
verbs produced by participants in each language to describe the three target do-
mains in the story retellings and the open-ended interview. For this analysis, a met-
aphorical motion event was taken as the unit of analysis, and each metaphorical
motion verb was coded as either a manner verb or a nonmanner verb. Manner cate-
gory included verbs that encoded either the motor pattern (e.g., hours crawl by), or
rate of metaphorical motion (e.g., an idea pops in his mind), or the degree of effort
involved in the motion (e.g., the idea penetrates into his mind), following the crite-
ria developed in earlier work (Özçal
ºkan, 2004, 2005b). Non-manner category in-
cluded verbs that encoded only the direction of metaphorical motion (e.g., the idea
enters his mind), and verbs that did not encode either the direction or the manner of
metaphorical motion (e.g., time goes by, sickness moves). The metaphorical de-
scriptions in the two languages were compared for their extent of manner and
nonmanner verb lexicon, using chi-square comparisons.

RESULTS

Developmental Changes in Children’s Understanding

of Metaphorical Motion
Children’s forced-choice responses in the story task showed early onset of meta-
phor understanding: 4-year-old children produced correct forced-choice responses
at a rate significantly above chance, with mean forced-choice scores of 4.30 in
English, t(19) = 5.64, p < 0.001, and 4.35 in Turkish, t(19) = 4.76, p = 0.001. More-
over, children’s performance improved significantly with age, F(2, 114) = 24.71, p
 CHILDREN’S DEVELOPING UNDERSTANDING OF METAPHORICAL MOTION 155

< 0.001. As Figure 1A shows, 5-year-old children tended to produce more correct
responses than the 4-year-old children in both English (M = 4.85) and Turkish (M =
4.70). Adults performed reliably better than the children in either age group
(Scheffé, p 0.01), producing correct responses with a combined mean score of 5.75
in the two languages. However, neither language nor linguistic form had an effect
on performance. Children produced correct forced-choice responses at compara-
ble rates in the two languages and the two linguistic form conditions (see the first
two columns in Table 1).
Children also produced better justifications over time, F(2, 114) = 104.31, p <
0.001. As Figure 1B shows, 4-year-old children were relatively poor in reasoning
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about their responses; their justification scores were 2.50 in English and 2.95 in
Turkish. Children’s justifications improved significantly by age 5 (Scheffé, p <
0.01), reaching mean scores of 5.80 in English and 5.00 in Turkish. Adults per-
formed significantly better than the children in either age group (Scheffé, ps <
0.05); they produced valid justifications with a combined mean score of 10.30 in
the two languages. Children’s justifications did not show any effect of language,
F(1, 114) = 0.59, ns), thus, children speaking English or Turkish produced equally
valid justifications. However, there was an effect of linguistic form on justifica-
tions, F(1, 114) = 6.6, p < 0.05; the effect was caused by the English-speaking
5-year-old children, who produced reliably better justifications in the idiomatic
verb condition (M = 3.30 vs. M = 2.50, Scheffé, p < 0.01). Except for this group, all
other groups provided equally valid justifications in the two linguistic form condi-
tions (see the last two columns in Table 1).
Children also became more likely to include metaphorical expressions in their
narrative reproductions over time, F(2, 114) = 15.77, p < 0.001. The types of meta-
phorical expressions included both verbatim repetitions from the stimulus stories

FIGURE 1 Mean forced-choice response score (Panel A, maximum possible score = 6) and
mean justification score (Panel B, maximum possible score = 12) in the story comprehension
task.
 156 ÖZÇALIªKAN

TABLE 1
Distribution of Mean Forced-Choice Response Scores and Justification
Scores by Linguistic Form

Mean Forced-Choice Score (SD) Mean Justification Score (SD)

Idiomatic Nonidiomatic Idiomatic Nonidiomatic

English
Age 4 2.05 (0.69) 2.15 (0.75) 1.40 (1.39) 1.10 (1.12)
Age 5 2.65 (0.49) 2.25 (0.85) 3.30 (1.56) 2.50 (1.47)
Adults 2.90 (0.31) 2.90 (0.31) 5.40 (0.94) 5.25 (1.12)
Turkish
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Age 4 2.20 (0.83) 2.15 (0.81) 1.60 (1.39) 1.35 (1.39)

Age 5 2.40 (0.82) 2.30 (0.66) 2.80 (1.80) 2.20 (1.91)
Adults 2.80 (0.41) 2.90 (0.31) 4.95 (1.23) 5.05 (1.00)

(e.g., ideas fly from the mind) and coinages not mentioned in the stimulus stories
(e.g., idea slips from her mind, she loses track of time). As Table 2 shows, overall,
children were more likely to produce verbatim repetitions of metaphorical expres-
sions than to coin new instances, in both languages. Adults, in contrast, showed a
greater tendency to produce new metaphorical expressions not found in the stimu-
lus texts. Nonetheless, both English and Turkish speakers produced more and more
narratives with metaphorical statements over time, and by age 5, more than half of
the narratives produced in each language had metaphors in them (English: M =
3.45, Turkish: M = 3.80). Moreover, at each age, Turkish speakers produced signif-
icantly more stories with metaphorical statements than English speakers, F(1, 114)
= 12.37, p < 0.001. Interestingly, the cross-linguistic difference was an outcome of
the English speakers’ greater tendency to provide literal rephrases of the meta-
phors that they heard in the stimulus stories. This tendency led to lower numbers of
stories with metaphorical statements in English as compared to Turkish at all ages.
Two sample responses are given in Examples 3 and 4, which are based on the stim-
ulus story in Example 1.

(3) Merve (4 and a half, female, Turkish speaker)1

Nil’s mother gives money. She thinks to buy milk and eggs from the grocery
store. Then she sees a candy seller. She thinks how beautiful it smells. Then
she sees a balloon man. She sees how beautiful the colors are. Then she co-
mes to the grocery store. And the things that her mother said escape and go
from her mind.

1The experimenter is referred to as “E” and the child as “C” throughout the text. Due to space limi-

tations, only the English translations of the Turkish responses are given. The Turkish stimulus story was
identical to the one in English, except for the proper names and types of motion verbs used.
 CHILDREN’S DEVELOPING UNDERSTANDING OF METAPHORICAL MOTION 157

TABLE 2
Distribution of Narrative Reproductions With Metaphorical Statements by Age
and Languagea

Age 4 Age 5 Adults

English
Mean number of narrative reproductions with 1.1 (0.97) 1.5 (1.15) 1.05(0.89)
verbatim metaphorical expressions (SD)
Mean number of narrative reproductions with 0.8 (1.06) 1.95 (1.28) 3.0 (1.30)
new metaphorical expressions (SD)
Mean number of narrative reproductions 1.90 (1.62) 3.45 (1.76) 4.05 (1.23)
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with either type of metaphorical

expression (SD)
Number of participants who used metaphors 15 17 20
in at least one narrative reproduction
Turkish
Mean number of narrative reproductions with 2.3 (1.42) 2.65 (1.39) 1.95 (0.76)
verbatim metaphorical expressions (SD)
Mean number of narrative reproductions with 1.15 (1.09) 1.15 (1.09) 3.0 (1.03)
new metaphorical expressions (SD)
Mean number of narrative reproductions 3.45 (1.40) 3.80 (1.40) 4.95 (1.23)
with either type of metaphorical
expression (SD)
Number of participants who used metaphors 20 20 20
in at least one narrative reproduction
aMetaphorical statements that used the same verb and the same metaphorical mapping as the metaphor-

ical expression in the stimulus story were considered as verbatim metaphorical expressions, and metaphori-
cal expressions that used a verb or a mapping different from the metaphorical expression in the stimulus
story were counted as new metaphorical expressions.

E: Why did Nil return home without buying the things her mom wanted?
(C chooses puppet with the correct answer)
E: Why did Elmo know the correct answer?
C: Because he knows.
E: How do we know that Nil forgot?
C: Because it escapes and goes from her mind.

(4) Lilia (5 years, 2 months, female, English speaker)

This is Lucy. Her mom gives her some money. Her mom wants her to go to a
nearby grocery store and get milk, butter, and eggs. While Lucy is on her way
to the grocer’s, she sees a candy man, and thinks how delicious the candy
would be. And then she sees a balloon man and thinks how colorful the bal-
loons are. When she gets to the grocery store, her thoughts have wandered
and she forgets what her mom wanted. And she returns home without the
stuff.
 158 ÖZÇALIªKAN

E: Why did Lucy go back home without the groceries?

(C chooses puppet with the correct answer)
E: Why was Cookie’s answer correct?
C: I think she returned home without the groceries, because she really didn’t
want to just think and think and then wander around the store looking, and
forget again.
E: So when she first got to the store what happened?
C: Her thoughts wandered and then she forgot what her mom wanted.

Children’s performance in the story task showed that children could understand
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metaphors in a narrative context by age 4. We next asked whether this understand-

ing would extend to instances in which metaphors were presented in isolation,
without any supportive context. Interestingly, responses in the open-ended inter-
view—which was a task designed to pursue this goal—revealed a difference be-
tween ages 4 and 5 in children’s ability to provide verbal descriptions for meta-
phorical events.
In the open-ended interview, when 4-year-old children were asked about the
different ways the three target domains could be described to move metaphori-
cally (e.g., Can time fly by? Can ideas run through your mind?), they gave either
all positive or all negative responses, with the latter being the more dominant
pattern in both languages (see Example 5). More interestingly, when the
4-year-old children who initially gave positive responses were questioned further
(How does time fly by? What does it mean when ideas slip from the mind?), they
described the metaphorical motion in physical terms (e.g., time flies with a heli-
copter), focusing only on the source domain meaning as in Example 6. This pat-
tern was particularly salient among English-speaking 4-year-old children, who
accompanied their explanations with gestures. These gestures focused exclu-
sively on the source domain of the metaphor as indexed by their place of articu-
lation. The gestural space was inconsistent with the target domain of the meta-
phor, and the gestures were typically whole body enactments that conveyed
physical motion (see Example 7).

(5) Nina (4, female, English speaker)

E: What about time? Can time fly? C: No.
E: Can time run? C: No.
E: Can time crawl? C: No.
E: Can time pass? C: No.
E: Can time flow? C: No.
E: Can time slip away? C: No.
E: What about jump? Can time jump? C: No.
E: Can time drip? C: No.
 CHILDREN’S DEVELOPING UNDERSTANDING OF METAPHORICAL MOTION 159

E: What about hours? Can hours drip? C: No.

E: What is time? C: Time means if you’re late or
not late.

(6) Cevza (4 years, 11 months, female, Turkish speaker)

E: Does time fly and go? C: It flies and goes.
E: How does it fly and go? C: Like a bird.
E: Can time pass? C: It passes.
S: How does time pass? C: From above the cloud.
E: Can time flow? C: It flows.
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E: How does it flow? C: Like water.

E: Can it jump? C: It jumps.
E: How does time jump? C: Like splash!
E: OK, how does time slip? C: It slips from the slide.
E: What is time? C: I don’t know.

(7) Edward (4 and a half, male, English speaker)

E: Well, how about time? Can time fly? C: Yes.
E: Yeah? Tell me about how time flies. C: Like this. (jumps while flap-
ping arms)
E: Can time run? C: Yeah, like. (runs in the room)
E: Can time crawl? C: Like this. (crawls on the floor)
E: Can time pass? C: Yeah.
E: How does time pass? C: Like this. (crawls on the floor)
E: Can time slip away? C: Yeah, like this. (slides and falls)
E: Can time jump? C: Yeah, like this. (jumps up and
down)
E: Can time drip? C: Yeah, like this. (makes his
fingers tiptoe)
E: Answer me this. What is time? C: Like this. (touches each finger
with thumb as if counting)

Five-year-old children’s responses in the open-ended interview differed from

those of the 4-year-old children in several important ways. Unlike the younger age
group, 5-year-old children produced detailed verbal descriptions for each meta-
phorical event either by using alternative metaphorical expressions (e.g., time
crawls by means it goes slowly), or by providing literal rephrases for metaphorical
events (e.g., ideas slip from the mind means you forget them; see Example 8).
Five-year-old children also produced gestures more in alignment with the target
domain of the metaphor. For example, in describing sickness in relation to the
body, children used the space between their head and lower body as the place of ar-
 160 ÖZÇALIªKAN

ticulation for their gestures (e.g., move hand downward slowly from upper to lower
body to describe illness spreading), but when they described ideas moving, they
typically gestured in the vicinity of the head (e.g., move hand away from the head
to convey ideas escaping from the mind; see Example 9).

(8) Rosa (5 years, 11 months, female, English speaker)

E: Can time fly? C: Yeah, like it goes really fast.
Sometimes when you’re like col-
oring and then the time goes re-
ally fast, like you don’t have
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much time to color.

E: But how does it fly? C: Like a bird! (laughs) No! No!
I’m just kidding. It doesn’t fly
like a bird. Like the clock goes
real fast.
E: Can time run? C: Yeah, like it goes really fast.
Like you only get a tiny bit of,
like that.
E: Can time crawl? C: Yeah. Like that means it’s go-
ing really slowly. Sometimes
when I’m bored, I have to be re-
ally bored for a long time, like
that.
E: Can time pass? C: Well, it passes. Because like it
can be the time you don’t think
it’s gonna be, like say it’s 8:30,
that’s my bedtime and then it
goes to 7:30, like that.
E: Can time slip away? C: (nods) Like you don’t see it
going away. When I’m playing
and it’s past my bedtime. My
mom says it’s one minute and it
goes more than one minute.
E: Can time jump? C: I don’t think so.
E: Can time drip? C: (nods) That means it’s going
really really slowly, it’s going
like that. (moves her finger
downward with small pauses
like dripping water)
E: What sort of thing is time? C: It’s something that you can’t
see. Like my mom gets up in the
morning and she just knows
 CHILDREN’S DEVELOPING UNDERSTANDING OF METAPHORICAL MOTION
(9) Liz (5 years, 10 months, female, English speaker)
E: Can an idea cross your mind?
E: How does it get into your head?
E: Can ideas run through your mind?
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E: Can ideas bounce in your head?
E: Can ideas pass through your mind?
E: Can ideas slip from your mind?
E: So they leave your mind?
E: How do they get out?
E: Really? Where do they go?
E: Can ideas crawl out of your head?
E: Can ideas wander in your head?
E: How do they wander in your head?
E: Can ideas tumble through your mind?
E: Can an idea escape from your head?
E: How does it do that?
E: What is an idea?
161
what time it is. And she looks at
the clock, something like that.
C: Yes. Because it kinda goes
across (points to her head). And
then you forget it.
C: Just you think about it.
C: Yeah, they just cross my mind
really fast. (points to her head)
C: When they go, you forget,
then you remember them. Then
you forget about them, then re-
member them, forget them, re-
member them, forget them.
(points to her head and away
from it repeatedly)
C: Yes, when they go real slowly.
(points to head)
C: Yes. When you’re going to
sleep and you forget about them
the next morning. (points to her
head)
C: Yes.
C: Well, because you forget
about them.
C: Maybe to someone else’s
mind.
C: (shakes head meaning no)
C: (nods)
C: How do they wander is they
just go around, around, around.
(circles finger over her head)
C: No.
C: Yes.
C: Because you’re just concen-
trating so hard and playing tag.
Then you forget about it.
C: It’s something that you think
or that you know. It’s kinda like
a virus, but it’s not bad. It’s
good.
 162 ÖZÇALIªKAN

E: How is it like a virus? C: Because it just kinda moves

around, not really, but it seems
to me like it does, but it don’t re-
ally.

Moreover, 5-year-old children were more likely to accept certain motion types
as more acceptable ways of describing the metaphorical motion of a target domain
as compared to other motion types (e.g., time passes but not jumps), and showed
patterns more typical of their native language in their responses than the 4-year-old
children. Children produced significantly fewer “no” responses to acceptable
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types of metaphorical motion over time, F(2, 114) = 25.77, p < 0.001, showing a
reliable decrease in their “no” responses from age 4;5 to age 5;5 in both English (M
= 10.45 vs. M = 6.30, Scheffé, p < 0.05) and Turkish (M = 5.45 vs. M = 2.95,
Scheffé, p < 0.01). On the other hand, no such reliable difference was observed be-
tween 5-year-old children and adults in either English (M = 6.30 vs. M = 2.50,
Scheffé, ns) or Turkish (M = 2.95 vs. M = 1.25, Scheffé, ns), suggesting a shift to-
ward a more adult-like pattern at age 5. English speakers also produced signifi-
cantly more “no” responses to acceptable motion types than Turkish speakers at
each age, F(1, 114) = 21.38, p < 0.001). Interestingly, this was an artifact of the
richer motion verb lexicon in English. For every target domain, English had a
greater variety of verb types that were acceptable in the language than did Turkish,
which increased the probability of “no” responses to acceptable motion types in
English and, thus, led to a significant cross-linguistic difference.
In sum, children understood metaphors structured by motion at an early age.
Metaphor comprehension in a story context was in place by age 4, and verbal rea-
soning ability about metaphorical mappings became evident by age 5.

LANGUAGE-BASED VARIATION IN THE

LEXICALIZATION OF METAPHORICAL MOTION EVENTS

Children’s metaphor comprehension showed no effect of language. At each age,

English- and Turkish-speaking children were equally good at answering the
forced-choice questions and giving relevant justifications for their answers. More-
over, in both languages, age 5 and a half marked the onset of the ability to provide
verbal descriptions for metaphorical events and to differentiate between conven-
tional and nonconventional ways of describing the metaphorical motion of the
three target domains. However, the close cross-linguistic similarity in overall pat-
terns of metaphor comprehension coincided with strong cross-linguistic variation
in the lexicalization of the source domain. English and Turkish speakers differed
from each other in describing the details of the motion, particularly in conveying
the manner dimension (i.e., how one moves from Point A to Point B metaphori-
 CHILDREN’S DEVELOPING UNDERSTANDING OF METAPHORICAL MOTION 163

cally). Overall, English speakers showed greater linguistic attention to the manner
of metaphorical motion, using a significantly greater variety of motion verbs that
encoded manner than did Turkish speakers (48 to 22 types, χ2(1) = 9.65, p < 0.01).
The cross-linguistic difference in encoding manner of motion was evident in the
responses of both child and adult native speakers. English-speaking children used
a significantly greater variety of motion verb types that encoded manner than Turk-
ish-speaking children (28 to 15 types, χ2(1) = 3.93, p < 0.05). Similarly, Eng-
lish-speaking adults produced a significantly more diverse lexicon of manner
verbs than Turkish-speaking adults (32 to 18, χ2(1) = 3.92, p < 0.05). The cross-lin-
guistic difference was only true for motion types that encoded manner; no such dif-
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ference was observed in speakers’ use of nonmanner verbs (e.g., enter, exit, as-
cend, go). The diversity of the nonmanner verb lexicon was roughly the same both
for children (English: 11 types, Turkish: 12 types) and adults (English: 14 types,
Turkish: 18 types).
In summary, the analysis showed no effect of language on overall patterns of
metaphor comprehension, but a significant effect of language in the lexicalization
of the source domain.

DISCUSSION

Metaphor is key to a full-fledged understanding of any abstract concept (Lakoff

& Johnson, 1999). As such, its mastery constitutes an important milestone for
both linguistic and conceptual development. In this study, we examined chil-
dren’s comprehension of metaphorical motion in English and Turkish, the two
languages that show close similarities in their metaphor structure but strong ty-
pological variation in their expression of motion. We had two predictions. The
first prediction was that children would understand motion metaphors earlier
than shown previously for metaphorical extensions of object properties, and
would follow the same developmental pattern in both languages. The second
prediction was that there would be an effect of language in the lexicalization of
the source domain, with English speakers paying greater linguistic attention to
manner of motion. Both predictions were supported.
Children showed metaphor comprehension by age 4, several years earlier than
reported in previous work (e.g., Asch & Nerlove, 1960; Winner et al., 1976). Thus,
4-year-old children could understand motion metaphors, but only when the meta-
phors were presented in a story context. However, when they were asked to inter-
pret isolated instances of metaphor—which was a common technique used in ear-
lier research—they almost exclusively based their explanations on the source
domain and provided physical descriptions for metaphorical events. This was not a
surprising finding, given that the scaffolding role of context in performance is
commonly observed in metaphor understanding (Vosniadou, 1987b; Vosniadou,
 164 ÖZÇALIªKAN

Ortony, Reynolds, & Wilson, 1984; Winner, Wapner, Cicone, & Gardner, 1979) as
well as in other domains of language acquisition (Bruner, 1986; Vygotsky, 1986).
At a moment when the child is in transition with respect to a knowledge state, con-
text plays a facilitative effect in performance, helping the child consolidate that
knowledge. The stories seemed to serve a similar facilitative effect here, helping
4-year-old children get metaphor understanding off the ground.
Children’s metaphorical ability showed considerable change at age 5. Unlike
the 4-year-old children, who focused exclusively on the source domain in inter-
preting isolated metaphorical expressions, 5-year-old children were able to con-
sider both the source and target domain meanings and produce metaphorical inter-
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pretations. The change in domain focus around age 5 can be explained in terms of
more global cognitive changes children undergo during this developmental period.
Between ages 2 to 7, children make the transition from preoperational to concrete
operational thinking (Piaget, 1973), and an important milestone of this transition is
the onset of the ability to consider multiple perspectives or dimensions of an event
simultaneously in an integrated fashion. Unlike a literal motion event, which in-
volves only one dimension (i.e., the source domain meaning), a metaphorical event
involves multiple dimensions: a source domain (i.e., motion), a target domain
(e.g., time), and a conceptual mapping between the two (TIME PASSAGE IS
MOTION ALONG A PATH); and the ability to consider both source and target do-
main meanings of a metaphor could also reflect the onset of such a perspec-
tive-taking ability.
Interestingly, children showed a change in their domain focus—from source
only to both source and target—not only in their speech, but also in their gestures.
They initially performed whole body enactments conveying physical motion, and
only later began to produce metaphorical hand gestures that conveyed information
about the metaphorical mapping. The fact that we see changes in children’s ges-
tures, along with their speech, suggests that changes in metaphorical ability are not
merely linguistic, but also reflect conceptual changes in children’s understanding
of metaphorical mappings. It has been shown that speech is often an imperfect
guide to a child’s linguistic knowledge (Goldin-Meadow, 2003). At the early
stages of language learning, gesture not only indexes oncoming changes in chil-
dren’s speech by reflecting underlying knowledge representations, but also helps
children progress to the next linguistic stage (Özçal
ºkan & Goldin-Meadow,
2005, 2006). Thus, gesture might be playing a similar role here, signaling the
child’s readiness to take the next step toward more complete metaphorical con-
structions in speech.
Moreover, children’s common use of gesture and bodily action to describe met-
aphorical events provides further evidence for the embodied nature of conceptual
metaphors (e.g., Gibbs, 1994, 2006; Lakoff & Johnson, 1997). It seems at the early
ages (~4), children try to make sense of metaphorical mappings by treating the
 CHILDREN’S DEVELOPING UNDERSTANDING OF METAPHORICAL MOTION 165

metaphorical concept as a physical object and by physically performing the action

conveyed in the metaphor (e.g., crawl on all fours when asked how time crawls).
But at age 5, instead of physically performing the action, children start simulating
the actions imaginatively and create partial reenactments of the action conveyed in
the metaphor by producing hand gestures in spaces aligned with the target domain
of the metaphor. This may be the very early beginnings of the adult ability to pro-
cess metaphorical language by creating online simulations of the actions conveyed
in the metaphor (Gibbs, 2006).
Our findings also show early attunement to language-specific patterns of meta-
phorical organization. Overall, children learning English expressed manner more
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extensively—with a greater diversity of manner verbs—than children learning

Turkish. This was not a surprising result given that, in a literal motion event de-
scription in Turkish, the main verb is mainly reserved to encode direction of mo-
tion (He enters/exits/ascends), whereas in English, the direction of motion is typi-
cally encoded in a particle associated with the verb, making the main verb
available for manner information (e.g., He walks/runs/crawls … in/out). The avail-
ability of an easily codable linguistic slot to encode manner of motion increases
English speakers’ tendency to encode manner habitually and develop a richer man-
ner verb lexicon (Slobin, 2004). Our findings showed this pattern to be true for
children’s metaphorical motion descriptions as well.
Earlier research on cross-domain metaphors plotted a developmental path
from an exclusive focus on literal meaning at preschool years to the gradual
emergence of metaphorical meaning in school years (e.g., Asch & Nerlove,
1960; Winner et al., 1976; Cicone, et al., 1981). The children in our study
showed both similarities and differences from this path in their understanding of
metaphorical motion. In line with the earlier findings, the children in our study
moved from an initial focus only on the source domain meaning (literal motion)
at age 4, to the integration of the target domain meaning (metaphorical motion)
at age 5. However, unlike earlier findings, the transition occurred at a much ear-
lier age. The disparity in the time of onset could be attributable to a number of
factors, including the choice of the source domain or the familiarity of the meta-
phorical mappings. This study examined children’s comprehension of metaphors
that are structured by a commonly used source domain, using a highly familiar
metaphorical mapping (X IS A MOVING ENTITY), a mapping that structures a
wide range of abstract domains in both English and Turkish (Özçal
ºkan, 2003).
Thus, the familiarity of the source domain and the metaphorical mapping might
have helped children to extract the metaphorical meaning, leading to an earlier
onset of metaphor comprehension. Future experimental work, based on system-
atic comparisons across different source domains and metaphorical mappings, is
needed to provide a more complete account of the emergence of metaphor un-
derstanding in young children. We also found that changes in children’s meta-
 166 ÖZÇALIªKAN

phor ability are indexed not only by their speech but also by their gestures. Thus,
systematic comparisons of children’s gestures that accompany their metaphori-
cal speech also stand out as a highly important research domain to gain further
insight into the developmental processes involved in metaphor comprehension
and production at the early ages.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
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The research presented in this paper was supported by a Chancellor’s Dissertation

Grant and a Mellon Grant from the University of California, Berkeley to the au-
thor. I would like to thank Dan I. Slobin, Alison Gopnik, Susan Ervin-Tripp, Eve
Sweetser, George Lakoff, Raymond Gibbs, Bradley M. Cooke, and the reviewers
for their helpful comments on an earlier version, and also to Melanie Berry for her
help with the English data collection.

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