In this study the influence of the amount of metaphor in written language upon reading comprehension is analyzed. Subjects in this study, 190 sixth graders, read two passages, relating the same events, but differing in the amount of metaphorical language used. Comprehension was measured by means of a cloze test. Though both passage versions yielded identical readability estimates, cloze comprehension of the metaphorical passage was lower than the comprehension of the non-metaphorical version.
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