A Study on Primary School Children's Development in Comprehension of Metaphor with/without Literal Meaning

The research studied the features of children's development in comprehension of metaphor with or without literal meaning, among 168 students of Grade Two, Four and Six from a city primary school. Results show that: 1) primary school students' metaphoric comprehension was at the low level throughout the entire primary school period, even lower to metaphor without literal meaning; 2) the low-and middle-grade students'understanding of metaphor with literal meanings was significantly better than those without literal meaning, while the high-grade students showed no difference in understanding metaphor with or without literal meaning; 3) primary school pupils were making rapid progress in understanding metaphor with or without literal meaning, and greater improvement was found in understanding metaphor without literal meaning.