Routes to reference

Jerome S. Bruner | New York University

However one conceives of the relation between a sign and its significate, referring is a communicative act in which a speaker must intentionally direct the attention of an interlocutor to some object, event, or state of affairs that the speaker has in mind. This article examines the ontogenesis and phylogenesis of acts of referring, with special concern for the possible nature of sign-significate relationships. Findings from developments psychology indicate that a group of abilities and skills underlie the ability to refer. Infants follow the gaze of others to objects of attention, and enjoy joint attention with others. Interactions with caregivers in routines well known to the child enable her to achieve joint attention with the adult on a particular ingredient in the routine. In this way, the ability to refer develops from certain "language games ", interactions that combine goal-seeking and joint attention.

Published online: 01 January 1998
https://doi.org/10.1075/pc.6.1-2.11bru

Cited by

Cited by 7 other publications

Brinck, Ingar & Peter Gardenfors

2003. Co-operation and Communication in Apes and Humans. Mind and Language 18:5 ► pp. 484 ff.

Brink, Ingar

2005. Joint Attention, Triangulation and Radical Interpretation: A problem and its Solution. Dialectica 58:2 ► pp. 179 ff.

Filipi, Anna

2014. In Pragmatic Development in First Language Acquisition [Trends in Language Acquisition Research, 10], ► pp. 71 ff.

Gallotti, Mattia

2012. A Naturalistic Argument for the Irreducibility of Collective Intentionality. Philosophy of the Social Sciences 42:1 ► pp. 3 ff.

Gallotti, Mattia

2020. Shared and Social Discourse. Topoi 39:3 ► pp. 587 ff.

Gaunet, Florence & Farid El Massioui

2014. Marked referential communicative behaviours, but no differentiation of the “knowledge state” of humans in untrained pet dogs versus 1-year-old infants. Animal Cognition 17:5 ► pp. 1137 ff.

Wyman, Emily, Hannes Rakoczy & Mike Tomasello

2013. Non-verbal communication enables children’s coordination in a “Stag Hunt” game. European Journal of Developmental Psychology 10:5 ► pp. 597 ff.

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 17 april 2022. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.