ABSTRACT
There is no doubt these three characteristics play a crucial part in a child’s acquisition of figurative language, though they each may be debated on several grounds. First, concerning the say-mean distinction, it should be noted that speakers usually do not communicate explicitly what they really mean: In any communicative act linguistic production is based to a great extent on the assump tion that the listener will make all the inferences necessary in order to get at the meaning intended by the speaker. Second, concerning conventionality, in numer ous linguistic forms that strictly speaking may not be considered figurative, the meaning is linked to culturally determined conventions, as for instance in the case of indirect speech acts. As for the third characteristic, literal language also can be context-dependent, because it is difficult to conceive of any expression existing outside a linguistic and extralinguistic context. However, the criteria that I have just discussed must be taken into account in studying the process of the acquisition of figurative language in children. In fact, children have difficulty understanding (a) that a distinction may exist between what is said and what is meant, (b) that the conventional meaning may differ from the literal one, and (c) that one needs to make use of all the available contextual information (the linguistic and nonlinguistic context as well as the relevant world knowledge) to identify the exact meaning of an expression.
