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Part of
Language in Interaction: Studies in honor of Eve V. Clark
Edited by Inbal Arnon, Marisa Casillas, Chigusa Kurumada and Bruno Estigarribia
[Trends in Language Acquisition Research 12] 2014
► pp. 175–190

Referential pacts in child language development

| Department of Psychology, University of Sheffield
ORCID logo | Department of Psychology, University of Sheffield

Referential pacts are temporary conventions created by interlocutors for the duration of a conversation. They occur when a speaker somewhat arbitrarily chooses between multiple possible referring expressions (e.g., saying “the spotty dog” rather than “the muddy dog” for a dog that is both spotty and muddy). A listener will expect the speaker to be consistent in this choice of expression from then on, but would not necessarily expect a new conversational partner to make the same choice. We review the adult psycholinguistic literature on referential pacts and present evidence from children. We consider pacts as a prime example of the Principles of Contrast and Convention and suggest further research is warranted into the origin of these assumptions about language use.

Published online: 17 July 2014
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tilar.12.15ste
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