UNDERSTANDING METAPHORS: GETTING STARTED WITH TCM JUNIOR

Abstract

"Our purpose is to present the first results of the application of a resource to analyze the ability to understand metaphors, with a group of 36 Portuguese children, from 4 to 6 years old. The instrument is the adaptation to European Portuguese of the TCM Junior, a metaphor comprehension test for children, from 4 to 6 years old, of Italian origin, which exists in circulation and with standardized data. At the moment, the material used is properly adapted for the Portuguese population, having followed all the rules of linguistic and cultural adaptation, and it is in the application phase, with a view to its measurement and loyalty, by meeting normative data. However, according to the tests carried out, the resource seems to us to have great potential: it is well accepted by children, it is discriminatory, within and between ages, the averages obtained are close to those of Italian counterparts, thus, the promising results are predictors a valid and necessary resource for the national context. The inexistence of adapted and available resources for European Portuguese on this subject is a fact. Moving forward with this task, a necessary and urgent task was looming, with guarantees of construct, theoretical and even content validity, based on the evidence of the original authors. We will also try, although briefly and not completely, for obvious reasons, to account for the instrument's architecture. We also consider, given its characteristics and evidence, and even as an initial project, that the resource in question can and should work as intervention material in terms of promoting the awareness of figurative and metaphorical language, it can be used by psychologists and other educators."