Children's pragmatic reasoning from word choice
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Listeners can learn from not just what speakers say, but also from how they choose to say it. Speech helps communicate both explicit information through the literal meaning of the words produced and also implicit information via pragmatic implications of intended meaning based on context. The ability to pick up on un- stated information conveyed through production choices is an important development for children because it allows them to infer meaning beyond what is said directly. Barner and colleagues (2011) posit that children's ability to compute scalar implicatures (e.g. that "some" implies some but not all) relies on their recognition of implied contrast with stronger lexical alternatives (i.e. that use of the weak quantifier "some" implies that its stronger competitor "all" could not have been used, or else an informative speaker would have said it instead). The Alternatives Hypothesis provides an elegant explanation for children's patterns of performance in scalar implicature tasks, and I extend this hypothesis to suggest that children's general pragmatic reasoning about word choice relies on their recognition of relevant alternatives in order to reason about speakers' intended meaning. I examine the predictions of the Alternatives Hypothesis using two case studies: children's computation of scalar implicatures and their inferences about category members from adjective use. Evidence from these experimental findings gives support that children are more successful at making pragmatic inferences when they are better able to consider relevant alternative descriptions a speaker could have used instead of the ones chosen. The ability to make inferences about speakers' intended meaning based on their production choices can help children learn to communicate more accurately and efficiently.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2015 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Horowitz, Alexandra Claire |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Psychology. |
| Primary advisor | Frank, Michael C |
| Thesis advisor | Frank, Michael C |
| Thesis advisor | Clark, Eve V |
| Thesis advisor | Markman, Ellen M |
| Advisor | Clark, Eve V |
| Advisor | Markman, Ellen M |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Alexandra Claire Horowitz. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Psychology. |
| Thesis | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2015. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2015 by Alexandra Claire Horowitz
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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