Hostname: page-component-7f64f4797f-7vqc4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-11-03T09:04:30.698Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The effect of perceptual availability and prior discourse on young children's use of referring expressions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2006

DANIELLE MATTHEWS ,
ELENA LIEVEN ,
ANNA THEAKSTON  and
MICHAEL TOMASELLO
DANIELLE MATTHEWS
Affiliation:
University of Manchester
ELENA LIEVEN
Affiliation:
University of Manchester and Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
ANNA THEAKSTON
Affiliation:
University of Manchester
MICHAEL TOMASELLO
Affiliation:
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Choosing appropriate referring expressions requires assessing whether a referent is “available” to the addressee either perceptually or through discourse. In Study 1, we found that 3- and 4-year-olds, but not 2-year-olds, chose different referring expressions (noun vs. pronoun) depending on whether their addressee could see the intended referent or not. In Study 2, in more neutral discourse contexts than previous studies, we found that 3- and 4-year-olds clearly differed in their use of referring expressions according to whether their addressee had already mentioned a referent. Moreover, 2-year-olds responded with more naming constructions when the referent had not been mentioned previously. This suggests that, despite early social–cognitive developments, (a) it takes time to master the given/new contrast linguistically, and (b) children understand the contrast earlier based on discourse, rather than perceptual context.

Information

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 27 , Issue 3 , July 2006 , pp. 403 - 422
Copyright
2006 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Allen S. E. M., & Schröder H.2003. The role of preferred argument structure in early Inuktitut spontaneous speech data. In J. Du Bois, L. Kumpf, & W. Ashby (Eds.), Preferred argument structure: Grammar as architecture for function (pp. 301– 338). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Ariel M.1988. Referring and accessibility. Journal of Linguistics, 24, 65– 87.Google Scholar
Ariel M.1990. Anaphoric antecedents. London: Croom Helm.
Bates E.1976. Language and context: The acquisition of pragmatics. New York: Academic Press.
Brooks R., & Meltzoff A.2002. The importance of eyes: How infants interpret adult looking behavior. Developmental Psychology, 38, 958– 966.Google Scholar
Brown P. M., & Dell G.1987. Adapting production to comprehension: The explicit mention of instruments. Cognitive Psychology, 19, 441– 472.Google Scholar
Bruner J.1983. Child's talk: Learning to use language. New York: Norton.
Campbell A. L., Brooks P., & Tomasello M.2000. Factors affecting young children's use of pronouns as referring expressions. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 43, 1337– 1349.Google Scholar
Clancy P.2003. The lexicon in interaction: Developmental origins of preferred argument structure in Korean. In J. Du Bois, L. Kumpf, & W. Ashby (Eds.), Preferred argument structure: Grammar as architecture for function (pp. 81– 108). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Flavell J. H.1974. The development of inferences about others. In T. Mischel (Ed.), Understanding other persons. Oxford: Blackwell.
Flavell J. H.1992. Perspectives on perspective taking. In H. Beilin & P. Pufall (Eds.), Piaget's theory: Prospects and possibilities. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Givon T. (Ed.). 1983. Topic continuity in discourse: A quantitative cross-language study. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Gopnik A., Slaughter V., & Meltzoff A.1994. Changing your views: How understanding visual perception can lead to a new theory of mind. In C. Lewis & P. Mitchell (Eds.), Children's early understanding of mind: Origins and development. Hove: Erlbaum.
Greenfield P. M.1979. Informativeness, presupposition and semantic choice in single word utterances. In E. Ochs & B. Schieffelin (Eds.), Developmental pragmatics (pp. 159– 166). New York: Academic Press.
Greenfield P. M., & Smith J.1976. The structure of communication in early language development. New York: Academic Press.
Gundel J., Hedberg N., & Zacharski R.1993. Cognitive status and the form of referring expressions in discourse. Language, 69, 274– 307.Google Scholar
Hickmann M., & Hendriks H.1999. Cohesion and anaphora in children's narratives: A comparison of English, French, German and Mandarin Chinese. Journal of Child Language, 26, 419– 452.Google Scholar
Horton W. S., & Gerrig R. J.2002. Speakers' experiences and audience design: Knowing when and knowing how to adjust utterances to addressees. Journal of Memory and Language, 47, 589– 606.Google Scholar
Horton W. S., & Gerrig R. J.2005. The impact of memory demands on audience design during language production. Cognition, 96, 127– 142.Google Scholar
Karmiloff-Smith A.1981. The grammatical marking of thematic structure in the development of language production. In W. Deutsch (Ed.), The child's construction of language. London: Academic Press.
Loveland K.1984. Learning about points of view: Spatial perspective and the acquisition of “I/you.” Journal of Child Language, 11, 535– 556.Google Scholar
Maslen R.2005. A usage-based account of the development of inflectional morphology and transitivity: Analysis of a dense naturalistic corpus. Unpublished manuscript, University of Manchester.
Meltzoff A.2004. Imitation as a mechanism of social cognition: Origins of empathy, theory of mind and the representation of action. In U. Goswami (Ed.), Blackwell handbook of childhood cognitive development. Oxford: Blackwell.
Metzing C., & Brennan S. E.2003. When conceptual pacts are broken: Partner-specific effects on the comprehension of referring expressions. Journal of Memory and Language, 49, 201– 213.Google Scholar
Moll H., & Tomasello M.2004. 12- and 18-month-old infants follow gaze to space behind barriers. Developmental Science, 7, F1– F9.Google Scholar
Moll H., & Tomasello M.(in press). Level 1 perspective taking at 24 months of age. British Journal of Developmental Psychology.
Moll H., & Tomasello M.2006. How 14- and 18-month-olds know what others have experienced. Manuscript submitted for publication.
O'Neill D.1996. Two-year-old children's sensitivity to a parent's knowledge state when making requests. Child Development, 67, 659– 677.Google Scholar
Ochs E., & Schieffelin B.1979. Developmental pragmatics. New York: Academic Press.
Oshima-Takane Y., Takane Y., & Schultz T. R.1999. The learning of first and second person pronouns in English: Network models and analysis. Journal of Child Language, 26, 545– 575.Google Scholar
Pickering M., & Garrod S.2004. Towards a mechanistic psychology of dialogue. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 27, 169– 226.Google Scholar
Pratt C., & Bryant P.1990. Young children understand that looking leads to knowing (so long as they are looking into a single barrel). Child Development, 61, 973– 982.Google Scholar
Ricard M., Girouard P., & Gouin-Décarie T.1999. Personal pronouns and perspective taking in toddlers. Journal of Child Language, 26, 681– 697.Google Scholar
Serratrice L.2004. Crosslinguistic influence at the syntax–pragmatics interface: Subjects and objects in English–Italian bilingual and monolingual acquisition. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 7, 183– 205.Google Scholar
Tomasello M., & Haberl K.2003. Understanding attention: 12- and 18-month-olds know what's new for other persons. Developmental Psychology, 39, 906– 912.Google Scholar
Wittek A., & Tomasello M.2006. Young children's sensitivity to listener knowledge and perceptual context in choosing referring expressions. Manuscript submitted for publication.