Abstract
Discourse particles specify how interlocutors’ understandings converge and differ, and appropriate use requires ability to represent propositions from two perspectives simultaneously. This makes discourse particles a highly useful case for investigating developments in children’s ability to monitor and compare mental states, a controversial issue in child language research. Being neither salient, nor obligatory, the particles further allow us to assess children’s motivation to look for interpersonal meanings without strong linguistic incentives. By means of a corpus analysis of peer group conversations (123 hours, 19 children: 1;9–6;3 years), the present study examines at which ages Danish kindergarteners demonstrate stable mastery of the interpersonal contextual demands of five particles marking shared knowledge, disagreement and differential access to knowledge. As background for evaluating children’s particle use as well as order of occurrence, adult consensus on particle meanings was substantiated with a gap-filling test and relative input frequency estimated in caregiver speech. Children were significantly above chance in producing intersubjective particles in felicitous contexts and differentiated clearly between the particles. While there was a strong increase in token frequency over the kindergarten years, children evidenced sensitivity to context from their first productions, and particle felicity did not improve significantly with higher age or production experience. The results suggest that 3-to-6-year-olds routinely monitor and compare representational states, and that they are highly motivated to coordinate conversations as joint actions by pointing to interlocutor perspectives.This article is part of Special Collection: Perspective Taking
Highlights
Human children are born into social niches abundant in perspectives of fellow humans (Tomasello et al 2005; Harder 2010)
The present paper focuses on just one aspect of perspective taking, human beings’ metarepresentational understanding of their own and others’ representations of states of affairs, i.e. their keeping track of what people know and believe (Perner 1991)
By means of a longitudinal spontaneous-speech analysis, the present study examines the hypothesis that children’s sensitivity to and interest in others’ mental states as well as their motivation to monitor conversations as joint actions spur them to acquire discourse particles before age 4–5 where traditional theory of mind tests are passed
Summary
Human children are born into social niches abundant in perspectives of fellow humans (Tomasello et al 2005; Harder 2010). The present paper focuses on just one aspect of perspective taking, human beings’ metarepresentational understanding of their own and others’ representations of states of affairs, i.e. their keeping track of what people know and (truly or falsely) believe (Perner 1991). This is the type of understanding typically measured with false-belief tasks and often described as an aspect of Theory of Mind (Wellman et al 2001), and in this paper the term “perspective” will refer to representational state, a specific propositional attitude
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
