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Reference: From conventions to pragmatics
Edited by Laure Gardelle, Laurence Vincent-Durroux and Hélène Vinckel-Roisin
[Studies in Language Companion Series 228] 2023
► pp. 323–345

The choice of referring expressions in adult-child dialogues

The influence of formal and functional factors

| Université du Québec à Montréal, ISC | CRBLM
| Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3, CLESTHIA
| Université de Lorraine, DevAH | ATILF
| Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3, CLESTHIA

This chapter focuses on the choice of referring expressions in adult-child dialogues, and particularly on the identification of formal and functional conditions promoting the uses of personal and demonstrative pronouns. The study is based on a corpus of 22 parent-child dyads. Children are aged from 21 to 27 months and interact with their interlocutor in various activities. Referring expressions were analysed according to their syntactic function, the activity dyads were involved in, the discourse type and their position in the referential chain. Our results show a strong interaction between formal and functional factors, in adults’ and children’s discourse, and confirm that the acquisition of pronouns’ referential value originates in the uptake of discourse sequences within the frame of familiar activities.

Keywords: language acquisition, pronouns, activities, discourse types, adult-child interactions
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The acquisition of referring expressions
    • 2.1The syntactic and referential factors involved in the use of referring expressions
    • 2.2Using referring expressions as a situated activity
  • 3.Studying the acquisition of pronouns: Data and method of analysis
    • 3.1A corpus of adult-child interactions
    • 3.2Coding
    • 3.3Statistics
  • 4.Results: Factors at play in the acquisition of pronouns
    • 4.1General distribution of referring expressions
    • 4.2The syntactic function
    • 4.3The position of the referent in the referential chain
    • 4.4The types of activities
    • 4.5The discourse types
    • 4.6Weighing each factor and interactions
      • 4.6.1Personal pronouns
      • 4.5.2Demonstrative pronouns
  • 5.Discussion and conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 2 February 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.228.17lem
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