Is 2-Year-Old Children's Referential Disambiguation of a Novel Word Primarily Aimed at Identifying the Word Meaning or at Understanding Their Communicative Partner?

Autor/in	Marno, Hanna
Titel	Is 2-Year-Old Children's Referential Disambiguation of a Novel Word Primarily Aimed at Identifying the Word Meaning or at Understanding Their Communicative Partner?
Quelle	In: Developmental Psychology, 57 (2021) 7, S.1058-1066 (9 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	ORCID (Marno, Hanna)
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0012-1649
DOI	10.1037/dev0001204
Schlagwörter	Toddlers; Novelty (Stimulus Dimension); Interpersonal Communication; Comprehension; Foreign Countries; Cues; Pragmatics; Hungary + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Infant; Infants; Toddler; Kleinkind; Interpersonale Kommunikation; Verstehen; Verständnis; Ausland; Stichwort; Pragmalinguistik; Ungarn
Abstract	During everyday conversations, young children are often challenged with the task of correctly identifying the referent of novel words. What is their primary aim when they try to do so? We propose that by being motivated to successfully participate in communicative interactions, children primarily aim at comprehending what the speaker intends to mean in the specific communicative context, rather than understanding what the word conventionally means. This proposal suggests that in the absence of clear referential cues, when referential disambiguation could be guided only by two distinct factors--the novelty of possible referents or the context in which the labeling occurs--children will rather rely on the pragmatic cues of the situation than on the novelty of the objects. To investigate this hypothesis, we tested 132 two-year-old Hungarian children (67 girls and 65 boys) in a referential disambiguation paradigm. Confirming our prediction, children identified the referent by inferring the intended meaning of the speaker, and not by relying on the novelty of the objects. Thus, when pragmatic cues are provided, children primarily rely on these cues to understand the intended meaning of the speaker. We suggest that this inference to the intended meaning of the speaker might serve most of the times as the input of children's word acquisition processes. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01