Children's and adults' everyday talk about surprise

Everyday uses of the term ‘surprise’ were examined in order to describe children's early experience with the term and explore links to children's developing conception of surprise. Data obtained from CHILDES (MacWhinney & Snow, 1990) included 123 uses of ‘surprise’ by children (N = 10, aged 2:0–5:5) and 118 by adults talking to children. Each use was coded for reference to expectation (expected, unexpected, or indeterminate) and affect (positive, negative, or indeterminate), as well as on other aspects of content (agreements = 91–100 per cent). From ages 2 to 5, children increasingly referred to unexpected events and decreasingly to positive affect or happy events, relative to other sorts of references; adults' speech showed little change on those dimensions. Implications for an account of conceptual development are discussed.