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Article published In: Perspectives on Chinese Language Acquisition
Edited by Henghua Su
[International Journal of Chinese Linguistics 12:2] 2025
► pp. 217–241

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Understanding unintended and unsuccessful ironies among Chinese primary school children

Age difference and impact of interlocutors’ social status

ORCiD logo with link | Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University
ORCiD logo with link | Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University
ORCiD logo with link | Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University
ORCiD logo with link | Tsinghua University
Published online: 6 October 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ijchl.24011.sun
Abstract
Despite the numerous studies on irony understanding, much remains unknown about how children comprehend unintended and unsuccessful ironies and the role of interlocutors’ social status in the recognition of ironic intention. The present study aimed to address this gap through randomly selecting 269 Chinese children in grades 3 and 6, with an average age of 9 and 12 years, respectively. The results indicate that: (1) both graders performed significantly better in the comprehension of regular irony than that of unintended and unsuccessful ironies; (2) there was no significant difference between 9 and 12 year-old children in the comprehension of unintended and unsuccessful ironies; (3) significant interaction between age and interlocutors’ social status was found in the understanding of unintended and unsuccessful ironies. 9-year-olds demonstrated a better understanding when both irregular types of irony happened between peers, while 12-year-olds showed a better performance under the teacher and students context. The above findings have valuable implications for figurative language teaching and research.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Methodology
    • 2.1Participants
    • 2.2Testing materials
    • 2.3Coding and scoring
    • 2.4Research procedure
  • 3.Results
    • 3.1Children’s comprehension of regular, unintended and unsuccessful ironies across different ages
    • 3.2Difference between regular, unsuccessful and unintended irony comprehension among Chinese children
    • 3.3The impact of social status on children’s comprehension of regular, unintended and unsuccessful ironies
  • 4.Discussion
    • 4.1Age differences in comprehension of regular, unintended and unsuccessful ironies
    • 4.2Chinese children’s superior understanding of regular ironies compared to that of unintended and unsuccessful ironies
    • 4.3Age and social status interaction in Chinese children’s comprehension of unintended and unsuccessful ironies
  • 5.Concluding remarks
  • References
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