The incremental effect of discourse-pragmatic sensitivity on referential choice in the acquisition of a first language

Hughes, Mary Ellen; Allen, Shanley

doi:10.1016/j.lingua.2014.03.001

Cited by 44 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…There is evidence that children respond similarly to interlocutors' needs, as they, too, express NPs more often when the referent is inaccessible (e.g., newly introduced in the discourse, not present in the extralinguistic context, etc. ), and they omit NPs more often when the referent is easily retrievable (e.g., Bel, 2003; Hughes & Allen, 2015; Paradis & Navarro, 2003; Serratrice, 2005). Thus, perhaps the tendency to express Spanish subject pronouns more often when switching reference than when maintaining it emerges as a result of a more general drive to communicate clearly.…”

Section: Discussion: How Are Constraints On Variation Acquired?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Acquiring constraints on morphosyntactic variation: children's Spanish subject pronoun expression

Shin¹

2015

J. Child Lang.

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Constraints on linguistic variation are consistent across adult speakers, yielding probabilistic and systematic patterns. Yet, little is known about the development of such patterns during childhood. This study investigates Spanish subject pronoun expression in naturalistic data from 154 monolingual children in Mexico, divided into four age groups: 6-7, 8-9, 10-11, 12+. Results from logistic regressions examining five predictors of pronoun expression in 6,481 verbs show that children's usage is structured and patterned. The study also suggests a developmental progression: as children get older, they become sensitive to more constraints. I conclude by suggesting that children learn patterns of variation by attuning to distributional tendencies in the input, and that the more frequent the patterns are, the easier they are to detect and learn.

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Section: Discussion: How Are Constraints On Variation Acquired?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Acquiring constraints on morphosyntactic variation: children's Spanish subject pronoun expression

Shin¹

2015

J. Child Lang.

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“…Following Allen and colleagues (Allen, 2000; Allen, Skarabela, & Hughes, 2008; Hughes, 2011; Hughes & Allen, 2013, 2014; Skarabela & Allen, 2010), the discourse status of each verbal, vocal, or non-verbal referential act takes a binary value, depending on its accessibility level in the discourse context. The discourse status of a referential act is coded as ‘previously mentioned’ when the referent is verbally mentioned in a lexical or non-lexical form within the preceding five utterances; otherwise it is coded as ‘new’.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Referential interactions of Turkish-learning children with their caregivers about non-absent objects: integration of non-verbal devices and prior discourse

Ateş

Küntay

2017

J. Child Lang.

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This paper examines the way children younger than two use non-verbal devices (i.e., deictic gestures and communicative functional acts) and pay attention to discourse status (i.e., prior mention vs. newness) of referents in interactions with caregivers. Data based on semi-naturalistic interactions with caregivers of four children, at ages 1;00, 1;05, and 1;09, are analyzed. We report that children employ different types of non-verbal devices to supplement their inadequate referential forms before gaining mastery in language. By age 1;09, children show sensitivity to discourse status by using deictic gestures to accompany their non-lexical forms for new referents. A comparison of children's patterns with those in the input they receive reveals that caregivers choose their referential forms in accordance with discourse status information and tend to use different types of non-verbal devices to accompany their lexical and non-lexical referential forms. These results show that non-verbal devices play an important role in early referential discourse.

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“…Indeed, the infant literature on the acquisition of reference confirms that language (including its nonverbal aspects) should be seen as “the vehicle for the exchange of a message that requires both a speaker and an addressee” (Serratrice & Allen, 2015 , p. 6). A key question in this domain is what the exact trajectory is of the development of the cognitive underpinnings that underlie the human capacity to refer (e.g., De Cat, 2015 ; Hughes & Allen, 2015 ; Küntay & Özyürek, 2006 ; Serratrice & Allen, 2015 ).…”

Section: Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A conceptual framework for the study of demonstrative reference

2020

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Language allows us to efficiently communicate about the things in the world around us. Seemingly simple words like this and that are a cornerstone of our capability to refer, as they contribute to guiding the attention of our addressee to the specific entity we are talking about. Such demonstratives are acquired early in life, ubiquitous in everyday talk, often closely tied to our gestural communicative abilities, and present in all spoken languages of the world. Based on a review of recent experimental work, here we introduce a new conceptual framework of demonstrative reference. In the context of this framework, we argue that several physical, psychological, and referent-intrinsic factors dynamically interact to influence whether a speaker will use one demonstrative form (e.g., this) or another (e.g., that) in a given setting. However, the relative influence of these factors themselves is argued to be a function of the cultural language setting at hand, the theory-of-mind capacities of the speaker, and the affordances of the specific context in which the speech event takes place. It is demonstrated that the framework has the potential to reconcile findings in the literature that previously seemed irreconcilable. We show that the framework may to a large extent generalize to instances of endophoric reference (e.g., anaphora) and speculate that it may also describe the specific form and kinematics a speaker’s pointing gesture takes. Testable predictions and novel research questions derived from the framework are presented and discussed.

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The incremental effect of discourse-pragmatic sensitivity on referential choice in the acquisition of a first language

Cited by 44 publications

References 46 publications

Acquiring constraints on morphosyntactic variation: children's Spanish subject pronoun expression

Acquiring constraints on morphosyntactic variation: children's Spanish subject pronoun expression

Referential interactions of Turkish-learning children with their caregivers about non-absent objects: integration of non-verbal devices and prior discourse

A conceptual framework for the study of demonstrative reference

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