Cover not available
Part of
Current Perspectives on Child Language Acquisition: How children use their environment to learn
Edited by Caroline F. Rowland, Anna L. Theakston, Ben Ambridge and Katherine E. Twomey
[Trends in Language Acquisition Research 27] 2020
► pp. 155–170

Social cognitive and later language acquisition

| University of Lancaster

A great number of studies suggest that children’s acquisition of mental-state language supports, or even facilitates, their understanding of others’ mental states and perspectives. However, based on previous research, it has often been difficult to determine which aspects of mental-state language support this so-called Theory of Mind understanding. Whereas some researchers have argued that it is the semantics of mental verbs, such as think and know, others have suggested that it is the subordinate structure of complement-clause constructions, such as She thinks that the sticker is in the red box. In English, these two aspects are often confounded: mental verbs are typically used in complement-clause constructions. However, more recent studies have turned to languages such as Chinese and German, which allow us to distinguish between verbal semantics and syntactic constructions and also look at their interaction. Overall, these studies suggest that both semantics and syntax can play a role in children’s Theory of Mind development. In this chapter I also present some findings that indicate that whether or not the semantics of mental verbs supports children’s Theory of Mind development depends on how exactly they are used in complement-clause constructions. Since these usage patterns differ across languages, we can also see cross-linguistic differences in the interaction between verbal semantics, syntactic patterns and Theory of Mind development.

Article outline
  • Preface
  • Language acquisition and Theory of Mind in interaction
  • Interactions between syntax, verbal semantics and false belief
  • Interactions between syntax, verbal semantics and false belief from a cross-linguistic perspective
  • Looking at usage patterns and functions across languages
  • Summary and conclusion
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 17 September 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tilar.27.07bra
References (37)
Astington, J. W., & Jenkins, J. M.
(1999) A longitudinal study of the relation between language and theory-of-mind development. Developmental Psychology, 35(5), 1311–1320. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bannard, C., Lieven, E., & Tomasello, M.
(2009) Modeling children’s early grammatical knowledge. PNAS, 106, 17284–17289. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Boeg Thomsen, D., Theakston, A., Kandemirci, B., & Brandt, S.
in prep.). Complements and false belief: A longitudinal study with 2- to 3-year-olds.
Brandt, S., & Buttelmann, D.
(2015, September). Theory of Mind and complex syntax. Paper presented at the Developmental Section and Social Section Annual Conference of the British Psychological Society, Manchester, UK.
Brandt, S., Buttelmann, D., Lieven, E. V., & Tomasello, M.
(2016) Children’s understanding of first and third person perspectives in complement clauses and false belief tasks. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 151, 131–143. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brandt, S., Lieven, E. V., & Tomasello, M.
(2010) Development of word order in German complement-clause constructions: Effects of input frequencies, lexical items, and discourse function. Language, 86, 583–610. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brandt, S., Li, H., & Chan, A.
under revision) What makes a complement false? Looking at the effects of verbal semantics and perspective in Mandarin children’s interpretation of complement clauses and their false-belief understanding. Applied Psycholinguistics.
Carlson, S. M., Moses, L. J., & Breton, C.
(2002) How specific is the relation between executive function and theory of mind? Contributions of inhibitory control and working memory. Infant and Child Development, 11, 73–92. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cheung, H., Husan-Chih, C., Creed, N., Ng, L., Wang, S., & Mo, L.
(2004) Relative roles of general and complementation language in theory of mind development: Evidence from Cantonese and English. Child Development, 75, 1155–1170. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cheung, H., Chen, H., & Yeung, W.
(2009) Relations between mental verb and false belief understanding in Cantonese-speaking children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 104, 141–155. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Davis, H. L., & Pratt, C.
(1995) The development of children’s Theory of Mind: The working memory explanation. Australian Journal of Psychology, 47, 25–31. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Diessel, H.
(2004) The acquisition of complex sentences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Farrar, M. J., Benigno, J. P., Tompkins, V., & Gage, N. A.
(2017) Are there different pathways to explicit false belief understanding? General language and complementation in typical and atypical children. Cognitive Development, 43, 49–66. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Farrar, M. J., & Maag, L.
(2002) Early language development and the emergence of a theory of mind. First Language, 22, 197–213. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Harris, P. L., de Rosnay, M., & Pons, F.
(2005) Language and children’s understanding of mental states. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 14(2), 69–73. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Howard Gola, A. A.
(2012) Mental verb input for promoting children’s theory of mind: A training study. Cognitive Development, 27, 64–76. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lewis, S., Hacquard, V., & Lidz, J.
(2017) “Think” pragmatically: Children’s interpretation of belief reports. Language Learning and Development, 13(4), 395–417. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lohmann, H., & Tomasello, M.
(2003) The role of language in the development of false belief understanding: A training study. Child Development, 74, 1130–1144. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lu, H., Su, Y., & Wang, Q.
(2008) Talking about others facilitates theory of mind in Chinese preschoolers. Developmental Psychology, 44(6), 1726–1736. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
MacWhinney, B.
(2000) The CHILDES project: Tools for analyzing talk. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Milligan, K., Astington, J. W., & Dack, L. A.
(2007) Language and Theory of Mind: Meta-analysis of the relation between language ability and false-belief understanding. Child Development, 78, 622–646. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Moore, C., Bryant, D., & Furrow, D.
(1989) Mental terms and the development of certainty. Child Development, 60, 167–171. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Perner, J., Sprung, M., Zauner, P., & Haider, H.
(2003) Want that is understood well before say that, think that, and false belief: A test of de Villiers’ linguistic determinism on German-speaking children. Child Development, 74, 179–188. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Perner, J., Stummer, S., Sprung, M., & Doherty, M.
(2002) Theory of Mind finds its Piagetian perspective: Why alternative naming comes with understanding belief. Cognitive Development, 17, 1451–1472. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pyers, J. E., & Senghas, A.
(2009) Language promotes false-belief understanding: evidence from learners of a new sign language. Psychological Science, 20(7), 805–12. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ruffman, T., Slade, L., & Crowe, E.
(2002) The relation between children’s and mothers’ mental state language and theory-of-mind understanding. Child Development, 73, 734–751. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schick, B., De Villiers, P., De Villiers, J., & Hoffmeister, R.
(2007) Language and Theory of Mind: A study of deaf children. Child Development, 78(2), 376–396. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Senghas, A., & Coppola, M.
(2001) Children creating language: How Nicaraguan Sign Language acquired a spatial grammar. Psychological Science, 12, 323–328. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tardif, T., So, C., & Kaciroti, N.
(2007) Language and false belief: Evidence for general, not specific effects in Cantonese-speaking preschoolers. Developmental Psychology, 43, 318–340. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tardif, T., & Wellman, H. M.
(2000) Acquisition of mental state language in Mandarin- and Cantonese-speaking children. Developmental Psychology, 36(1), 25–43. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Theakston, A., & Lieven, E. V.
(2017) Multiunit sequences in first language acquisition. Topics in Cognitive Science, 9, 588–603. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Thompson, Sandra A.
(2002 “Object complements” and conversation: Towards a realistic account. Studies in Language, 26, 125–164. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Verhagen, A.
(2005) Constructions of intersubjectivity. Discourse, syntax and cognition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Villiers, J. de
(2007) The interface of language and Theory of Mind. Lingua, 117, 1858–1878. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Villiers, J. G. de, & Pyers, J. E.
(2002) Complements to cognition: A longitudinal study of the relationship between complex syntax and false-belief-understanding. Cognitive Development, 17(1), 1037–1060. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wellman, H. M., Cross, D., & Watson, J.
(2001) Meta-analysis of Theory of Mind development: The truth about false belief. Child Development, 72, 655–684. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wimmer, H., & Perner, J.
(1983) Beliefs about beliefs: Representation and constraining function of wrong beliefs in young children’s understanding of deception. Cognition, 13, 103–128. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (2)

Cited by 2 other publications

Montgomery, Derek E.
2023. Language and children's understanding of knowledge: Epistemic talk in early childhood. Mind & Language 38:4 ► pp. 1102 ff. DOI logo
Ferretti, Francesco & Ines Adornetti
2021. Persuasive conversation as a new form of communication inHomo sapiens. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 376:1824 DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 29 june 2024. 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.