Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T04:22:50.333Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Four- and six-year-olds use pragmatic competence to guide word learning*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2012

MARIA D. VÁZQUEZ ,
SARAH S. DELISLE  and
MEGAN M. SAYLOR
MARIA D. VÁZQUEZ*
Affiliation:
Vanderbilt University
SARAH S. DELISLE
Affiliation:
Vanderbilt University
MEGAN M. SAYLOR
Affiliation:
Vanderbilt University
*
Address for correspondence: Maria Vázquez, Department of Psychology and Human Development, 0552 GPC, 230 Appleton Place, Nashville, TN 37203-5721. e-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The present study investigates whether four- and six-year-old children use pragmatic competence as a criterion for learning from someone else. Specifically, we ask whether children use others' adherence to Gricean maxims to determine whether they will offer valid labels for novel objects. Six-year-olds recognized adherence to the maxims of quality and relation and subsequently trusted the labels provided by a maxim adherer. Four-year-olds displayed this pattern when judging adherence to quality but not relation. A linear regression revealed that children's ability to identify maxim adherers predicted their ability to choose the correct object during word-learning trials. This research demonstrates that children use others' pragmatic history when judging the reliability of the information they offer.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 40 , Issue 2 , March 2013 , pp. 291 - 306
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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.)

Footnotes

[*]

The authors would like to thank Jennifer Bauman, Anna Laura Chae, Michelle Doscas, Jonathan Herberg, Leighann Hughart, Stephen Killingsworth, Lauren Krensky, Daniel Levin, Percival Matthews, Maria Osina, Mark Somanader and Teddi Zuckerman for their help and feedback throughout the study. We would also like to express our gratitude to all our participants and their parents.

References

REFERENCES

Ackerman, B. P. (1981). When is a question not answered? The understanding of young children of utterances violating or conforming to the rules of conversation sequencing. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 31, 487–507.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Akhtar, N., Dunham, F. & Dunham, P. J. (1991). Directive interactions and early vocabulary development: The role of joint attentional focus. Journal of Child Language 18, 41–49.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Birch, S. A. J. & Bloom, P. (2002). Preschoolers are sensitive to the speakers' knowledge when learning proper names. Child Development 73, 434–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Birch, S. A. J, Vauthier, S. A. & Bloom, P. (2008). Three- and four-year-olds spontaneously use others' past performance to guide their learning. Cognition 107, 1018–34.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bloom, L., Rocissano, L. & Hood, L. (1976). Adult–child discourse: Developmental interaction between information processing and linguistic knowledge. Cognitive Psychology 8, 521–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brooks, R. & Meltzoff, A. N. (2005). The development of gaze following and its relation to language. Developmental Science 8, 535–43.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brosseau-Liard, P. E. & Birch, S. A. J. (2010). ‘I bet you know more and are nicer too!’: what children infer from others' accuracy. Developmental Science 13, 772–78.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brown, R. (1980). The maintenance of conversation. In Olson, D. R. (ed.), The social foundations of language and thought, 187–210. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Carpenter, M., Nagell, K. and Tomasello, M. (1998). Social cognition, joint attention, and communicative competence from 9 to 15 months of age. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 63.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clément, F., Koenig, M. & Harris, P. L. (2004). The ontogenesis of trust in testimony. Mind and Language 19, 360–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conti, D. J. & Camras, L. A. (1984). Children's understanding of conversational principles. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 38, 456–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Corriveau, K. H. & Harris, P. L. (2009 a). Choosing your informant: Weighing familiarity and recent accuracy. Developmental Science 12, 426–37.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Corriveau, K. H. & Harris, P. L. (2009 b). Preschoolers continue to trust a more accurate informant 1 week after exposure to accuracy information. Developmental Science 12, 188–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Corriveau, K. H., Meints, K. & Harris, P. L. (2008). Early tracking of informant accuracy and inaccuracy. British Journal of Developmental Psychology 27, 331–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eskritt, M., Whalen, J. & Lee, K. (2008). Preschoolers can recognize violations of the Gricean maxims. British Journal of Developmental Psychology 26, 435–43.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Floor, P. & Akhtar, N. (2006). Can 18-month-old infants learn words by listening in on conversations? Infancy 9, 327–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fusaro, M. & Harris, P. L. (2008). Children assess informant reliability using bystanders' non-verbal cues. Developmental Science 11, 771–77.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Garvey, C. & Hogan, R. (1973). Social speech and social interaction: Egocentrism revised. Child Development 44, 562–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grice, H. P. (1957). Meaning. Philosophical Review 64, 377–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grice, H. P. (1975). Logic and conversation. In Cole, P. & Morgan, J. L. (eds), Syntax and semantics 3: Speech acts, 41–58. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Koenig, M. A., Clement, F. & Harris, P. L. (2004). Trust in testimony: Children's use of true and false statements. Psychological Science 15, 694–98.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Koenig, M. A. & Harris, P. L. (2005). Preschoolers mistrust ignorant and inaccurate speakers. Child Development 76, 1261–77.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Koenig, M. A. & Jaswal, V. K. (2011). Characterizing children's expectations about expertise and incompetence: Halo or pitchfork effects? Child Development 82, 1634–47.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Menig-Peterson, C. L. (1975). The modification of communicative behavior in preschool-aged children as a function of the listener's perspective. Child Development 46, 1015–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nurmsoo, E. & Robinson, E. J. (2009). Identifying unreliable informants: Do children excuse past inaccuracy? Developmental Science 12, 41–47.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pasquini, E. S., Corriveau, K. H., Koenig, M. & Harris, P. L. (2007). Preschoolers monitor the relative accuracy of informants. Developmental Psychology 43, 1216–26.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Perner, J. & Leekam, S. R. (1986). Belief and quantity: Three-year-olds' adaptation to listener's knowledge. Journal of Child Language 13, 305–315.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rakoczy, H., Warneken, F. & Tomasello, M. (2009). Young children's selective learning of rule games from reliable and unreliable models. Cognitive Development 24, 61–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sabbagh, M. A. & Baldwin, D. A. (2001). Learning words from knowledgeable versus ignorant speakers: Links between preschoolers' theory of mind and semantic development. Child Development 72, 1054–70.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Saylor, M. M., Baird, J. A. & Gallerani, C. (2006). Telling others what's new: Preschoolers' adherence to the Given–New Contract. Journal of Cognition and Development 7, 341–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scofield, J. & Behrend, D. A. (2008). Learning words from reliable and unreliable speakers. Cognitive Development 23, 278–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shapiro, L. & Hudson, J. (1991). Tell me a make-believe story: Coherence and cohesion in young children's picture-elicited narratives. Developmental Psychology 27, 960–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Siegal, M. (1999). Language and thought: The fundamental significance of conversational awareness for cognitive development. Developmental Science 2, 1–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sobel, D. M. & Corriveau, K. H. (2010). Children monitor individual's expertise for word learning. Child Development 81, 669–79.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed