The developmental trajectory of mandarin Chinese-speaking children’s pure metonymy comprehension ability

This empirical study investigates Chinese children’s developmental trajectory of pure metonymy comprehension. In the light experiment design in Jiang’s (2019) and Köder Falkum’s (2020) studies, present study, adopting a quantitative approach, employed modified behavioral an eye-tracking experiment. Drawing on experimental data, finds that: a) comprehension performance showed tendency towards U-shape tasks; b) target (metonymy) fixation proportion, however, developed with age c) not only but also different features difficulty levels metonymies. Thus, this explains by arguing that age-4 -5 ability can be masked literal preference reported high randomness task results age-3 participants level culture-related Moreover, argues year six is crucial stage for development, which provides implications early figurative language education.