Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-qsmjn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T19:41:21.660Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Pragmatics in acquisition*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 July 2014

EVE V. CLARK
EVE V. CLARK*
Affiliation:
Stanford University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Recent research has highlighted several areas where pragmatics plays a central role in the process of acquiring a first language. In talking with their children, adults display their uses of language in each context, and offer extensive feedback on form, meaning, and usage, within their conversational exchanges. These interactions depend critically on joint attention, physical co-presence, and conversational co-presence – essential factors that help children assign meanings, establish reference, and add to common ground. For young children, getting their meaning across also depends on realizing language is conventional, that words contrast in meaning, and that they need to observe Grice's cooperative principle in conversation. Adults make use of the same pragmatic principles as they solicit repairs to what children say, and thereby offer feedback on both what the language is and how to use it.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 41 , Issue S1: Reflections: 40 years of JCL , July 2014 , pp. 105 - 116
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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

[*]

Address for correspondence: Eve V. Clark, Department of Linguistics, Margaret Jacks Hall–Bldg 460, Stanford, CA 94305-2150, USA; e-mail: eclark@stanford.edu

References

REFERENCES

Baldwin, D. A. (1991). Infants' contribution to the achievement of joint reference. Child Development 62, 875–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baldwin, D. A. & Baird, J. A. (2001). Discerning intentions in dynamic human action. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 5, 171–8.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bavelas, J. B. & Chovil, N. (2006). Hand gestures and facial displays as part of language use in face-to-face dialogue. In Mausov, V. & Patterson, M. (eds), Handbook of nonverbal communication, 97–115. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bloom, L., Margulis, C., Tinker, E. & Fujita, N. (1996). Early conversations and word learning: contributions from child and adult. Child Development 67, 3154–75.Google Scholar
Carey, S. (1985). Conceptual change in childhood. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Casillas, M. A., Bobb, S. B. & Clark, E. V. (2014). Turn taking, timing, and planning in early language acquisition. Unpublished ms, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, the Netherlands.Google Scholar
Childers, J. B., Vaughan, J. & Burquest, D. A. (2007). Joint attention and word learning in Ngas-speaking toddlers in Nigeria. Journal of Child Language 33, 199–225.Google Scholar
Chouinard, M. M. & Clark, E. V. (2003). Adult reformulations of child errors as negative evidence. Journal of Child Language 30, 637–69.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clark, E. V. (1982). Language change during language acquisition. In Lamb, M. E. & Brown, A. L. (eds), Advances in developmental psychology, vol. 2, 171–95. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Clark, E. V. (1987). The principle of contrast: a constraint on language acquisition. In MacWhinney, B. (ed.), Mechanisms of language acquisition, 1–33. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Clark, E. V. (1990). On the pragmatics of contrast. Journal of Child Language 17, 417–31.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clark, E. V. (1995). Language acquisition: the lexicon and syntax. In Miller, J. L. & Eimas, P. D. (eds), Handbook of perception and cognition (2nd ed.), vol. 11: speech, language, and communication, 303–37. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Clark, E. V. (1997). Conceptual perspective and lexical choice in acquisition. Cognition 64, 1–37.Google Scholar
Clark, E. V. (1998). Lexical structure and pragmatic directions in acquisition. In Gruber, M. C., Higgins, D., Olson, K. S. & Wysocki, T. (eds), Papers from the 34th meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society 1998: the panels, 437–46. Chicago, IL: Chicago Linguistic Society.Google Scholar
Clark, E. V. (2010). Adult offer, word-class, and child uptake in early lexical acquisition. First Language 30, 250–69.Google Scholar
Clark, E. V. (2014). Common ground. In MacWhinney, B. & O'Grady, W. (eds), The handbook of language emergence. London: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Clark, E. V. (in press). Semantics and language acquisition. In Lappin, S. & Fox, C. (eds), Handbook of contemporary semantic theory (2nd ed.). Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Clark, E. V. & Bernicot, J. (2008). Repetition as ratification: how parents and children place information in common ground. Journal of Child Language 35, 349–71.Google Scholar
Clark, E. V. & Estigarribia, B. (2011). Using speech and gesture to inform young children about unfamiliar word meanings. Gesture 11, 1–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, E. V. & Grossman, J. G. (1998). Pragmatic directions and children's word learning. Journal of Child Language 25, 1–18.Google Scholar
Clark, E. V. & Kurumada, C. (2013). ‘Be brief’: necessity or choice? In Goldstein, L. (ed.), Brevity, 233–48. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Clark, E. V. & de Marneffe, M.-C. (2012). Constructing verb paradigms in French: adult construals and emerging grammatical contrasts. Morphology 22, 89–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, E. V. & Wong, A. D.-W. (2002). Pragmatic directions about language use: words and word meanings. Language in Society 31, 181–212.Google Scholar
Corrin, J. (2010). Maternal repair initiation at MLU Stage 1: the developmental power of ‘hm?’. First Language 30, 312–28.Google Scholar
Csibra, G. (2010). Recognizing communicative intentions in infancy. Mind and Language 25, 141–68.Google Scholar
Estigarribia, B. & Clark, E. V. (2007). Getting and maintaining attention in talk to young children. Journal of Child Language 34, 799–814.Google Scholar
Ferrier, L. J. (1978). Some observations of error in context. In Waterson, N. & Snow, C. (eds), The development of communication, 301–9. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Fisher, C. & Tokura, H. (1995). The given–new contract in speech to infants. Journal of Memory and Language 34, 287–310.Google Scholar
Gallaway, C. & Richards, B. J. (eds) (1994). Input and interaction in language acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gelman, S. A., Coley, J. D., Rosengren, K. S., Hartman, E. & Pappas, A. (1998). Beyond labeling: the role of maternal input in the acquisition of richly structured categories. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 63 (Serial No. 253).Google Scholar
Gergely, G., Bekkering, H. & Király, I. (2002). Rational imitation in preverbal infants. Nature 415, 755.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Goldin-Meadow, S., Goodrich, W., Sauer, E. & Iverson, J. (2007). Young children use their hands to tell their mothers what to say. Developmental Science 10, 778–85.Google Scholar
Haviland, S. E. & Clark, H. H. (1974). What's new? Acquiring new information as a process in comprehension. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 13, 512–21.Google Scholar
Hills, T. T., Maouebe, M., Maouene, J., Sheya, A. & Smith, L. (2009). Longitudinal analysis of early semantic networks: preferential attachment or preferential acquisition? Psychological Science 20, 729–39.Google Scholar
Iverson, J. M. & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2005). Gesture paves the way for language development. Psychological Science 16, 368–71.Google Scholar
Kelly, B. F. (2011). A new look at redundancy in children's gesture and word combinations. In Arnon, I. & Clark, E. V. (eds), Experience, variation, and generalization: learning a first language, 73–89. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kemler-Nelson, D. (1995). Principle-based inferences in young children's categorization: revisiting the impact of function on the naming of artifacts. Cognitive Development 10, 347–80.Google Scholar
Kobayashi, H. (1998). How 2-year-old children learn novel part names of unfamiliar objects. Cognition 68, B41–B51.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Landau, B., Smith, L. & Jones, S. (1998). Object shape, object function, and object name. Journal of Memory and Language 38, 1–27.Google Scholar
Masur, E. F. (1997). Maternal labeling of novel and familiar objects: implications for children's development of lexical constraints. Journal of Child Language 24, 427–39.Google Scholar
Matthews, D., Lieven, E. & Tomasello, M. (2010). What's in a manner of speaking? Children's sensitivity to partner-specific referential precedents. Developmental Psychology 46, 749–60.Google Scholar
Olson, J. & Masur, E. F. (2011). Infants’ gestures influence mothers’ provision of object, action, and internal state labels. Journal of Child Language 38, 1028–54.Google Scholar
O'Neill, D. K. (1996). Two-year-old children's sensitivity to a parent's knowledge state when making requests. Child Development 67, 659–77.Google Scholar
Rader, N. de V. & Zukow-Goldring, P. (2010). How the hands control attention during early word learning. Gesture 10, 203–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roy, B. C., Frank, M. C. & Roy, D. (2012). Relating activity contexts to early word learning in dense longitudinal data. Proceedings of the 34th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 935–940). Sapporo, Japan.Google Scholar
Saxton, M. (2000). Negative evidence and negative feedback: immediate effects on the grammaticality of child speech. First Language 20, 221–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shatz, M. (1978). On the development of communicative understanding: an early strategy for interpreting and responding to messages. Cognitive Psychology 10, 271–301.Google Scholar
Snow, C. E. & Ferguson, C. A. (1977). Talking to children: language input and acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Stivers, T., Enfield, N. J., Brown, P., Englert, C., Hayashi, M., Heinemann, T., Hoymann, G., Rossano, F., de Ruiter, J. P., Yoon, K.-E. & Levinson, S. C. (2009). Universals and cultural variation in turn-taking in conversation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106, 10587–92.Google Scholar
Tomasello, M. (1995). Joint attention as social cognition. In Moore, C. & Dunham, P. J. (eds), Joint attention: its origins and role in development, 103–30. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar