Hostname: page-component-6766d58669-rxg44 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-20T15:49:00.574Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Young children's sensitivity to listener knowledge and perceptual context in choosing referring expressions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 November 2005

ANGELIKA WITTEK  and
MICHAEL TOMASELLO
ANGELIKA WITTEK
Affiliation:
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
MICHAEL TOMASELLO
Affiliation:
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Speakers use different types of referring expressions depending on what the listener knows or is attending to; for example, they use pronouns for objects that are already present in the immediate discourse or perceptual context. In a first study we found that 2.5- and 3.5-year-old children are strongly influenced by their interlocutor's knowledge of a referent as expressed in her immediately preceding utterance. Specifically, when they are asked a question about a target object (“Where is the broom?”), they tend to use null references or pronouns to refer to that object (“On the shelf” or “It's on the shelf”); in contrast, when they are asked more general questions (“What do we need?”) or contrast questions (“Do we need a mop?”) that reveal no knowledge of the target object they tend to use lexical nouns (“A broom” or “No, a broom”). In a second study we found that children at around their second birthday are not influenced by immediately preceding utterances in this same way. Finally, in a third study we found that 2.5- and 3.5-year-old children's choice of referring expressions is very little influenced by the physical arrangements of objects in the perceptual context, whether it is absent or needs to be distinguished from a close-by alternative, when they request a target object from a silent adult. These results are discussed in terms of children's emerging understanding of the knowledge and attentional states and other persons.

Information

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 26 , Issue 4 , October 2005 , pp. 541 - 558
Copyright
© 2005 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., & Schroder H. 2003. Preferred argument structure in early Inuktitut spontaneous speech data. In J. DuBois, L. Kumpf, & W. Ashby (Eds), Preferred argument structure: Grammar as architecture for function. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Ariel M. 1988. Referring and accessibility. Journal of Linguistics, 24, 65– 87.Google Scholar
Bittner D. 2002. Emergence of verb and noun phrases in German. In K. Dzinbalska (Ed.), Future challenges for natural linguistics. Warsaw: Weckneith.
Bloom P. 1990. Subjectless sentences in child language. Linguistic Inquiry, 21, 491– 504.Google Scholar
Budwig N., Stein S., & O'Brien C. 2001. Non-agent subjects in early child language: A crosslinguistic comparison. In K. Nelson, A. Aksu-Koc, & C. Johnson (Eds.), Children's language (Vol. 11). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Campbell A., Brooks P., & Tomasello M. 2000. Factors affecting young children's use of pronouns as referring expressions. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearning Research, 43, 1337– 1349.Google Scholar
Chafe W. 1994. Discourse, consciousness, and time: The flow and displacement of conscious experience in speaking and writing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Clancy P. 2002. The lexicon in interaction: Developmental origins of preferred argument structure in Korean. In. J. DuBois (Ed.), Preferred argument structure: Grammar as architecture for function. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
DuBois J. 1987. The discourse basis of ergativity. Language, 63, 805– 855.Google Scholar
Flavell J. H. 1992. Perspectives on perspective taking. In H. Beilin & P. B. Pufall (Eds.), Piaget's theory: Prospects and possibilities. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Givón T. 1993. English grammar: A function-based introduction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Gundel J., Hedberg N., & Zacharski R. 1993. Cognitive status and the form of referring expressions. Language, 69, 274– 307.Google Scholar
Mehta C., & Patel N. 2002. LogXact5 Logistic Regression software featuring exact methods [User manual]. Cambridge, MA: Cytel Software Corporation.
O'Neill D. K. 1996. Two-year-old children's sensitivity to a parent's knowledge state when making requests. Child Development, 67, 659– 677.Google Scholar
Shatz M. 1983. Communication. In J. Flavell & E. Markman (Eds), Handbook of child psychology (4th ed., Vol. 3). Chichester: Wiley.
Tomasello M. 1999. The cultural origins of human cognition. Harvard, MA: Harvard University Press.
Tomasello M., Anselmi D., & Farrar J. 1985. Young children's coordination of gestural and linguistic reference. First Language, 5, 199– 210.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