Chapter 11
The acquisition of referring expressions: From formal factors to communicative experience
This last chapter undertakes a general
discussion of the results presented in Chapters 2 to 10.
After recalling the overall distribution of referring expressions in
the data of toddlers (age 1;7 to 2;6) and older children (age 3;6 to
7;5), we review the impact of formal factors (syntactic functions,
lexicon, constructions), discourse-pragmatic factors (the referent
type and its status in the discourse) and socio-discursive and
dialogical factors (activity, speech genre, social and interactional
setting and dialogue) on the use of referring expressions. More than
each factor taken separately, their interaction accounted for the
children’s and the adult’s uses of these expressions. Moreover, both
the child and adult uses were strongly determined by the
socio-discursive and dialogical context. These results thus appear
to offer a consistent set of arguments in favor of a dialogical
account of the process whereby children acquire and use referring
expressions, one that should not only consider forms and cognitive
development but also the way children experience forms in various
meaningful and dialogical contexts.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Overall distribution of referring expressions
- 3.The interaction of formal and discourse-pragmatic factors
- 3.1Formal factors
- 3.2Discourse-pragmatic factors
- 3.2.1The influence of the referent’s characteristics on the
use of referring expressions
- 3.2.2The impact of the referent’s status in the
discourse
- 3.3How do formal and discourse-pragmatic factors
interact?
- 4.Communicative experience and dialogue
- 4.1Activities and use of referring expressions
- 4.2The impact of speech genre
- 4.3The influence of social setting
- 4.4The influence of the interactional setting: Towards reconsidering models
- 4.5Reference in the dynamics of dialogue
- 5.Conclusion
-
Acknowledgements
-
Notes
-
References