A Developmental Test of Theoretical Perspectives on the Understanding of Verbal Irony: Children's Recognition of Allusion and Pragmatic Insincerity

The "allusional pretense" theory of verbal irony (Kumon-Nakamura, Glucksberg, & Brown, 1995) claims that irony can be characterized as having 2 main features: (a) allusion to behavioral expectations, prior thoughts utterances, social conventions, and so forth and (b) pragmatic insincerity. Following a brief review of what is currently known about children's comprehension of irony, the focus of this article is on description of a developmental study testing the allusional pretense theory. One result of this study is that, just like adults, 8-year-old children were found to be able to recognize both allusion and pragmatic insincerity behind ironic speech acts. The potential effect of propositional form on irony comprehension is also discussed.