Abstract
To communicate successfully, speakers need to use words that are understood by their listeners; they thus need to understand that others have vocabularies different than their own. A key question is whether this social cognition skill is already present in infancy, and whether it can have an impact on early language production. Analysis of the vocabularies of 550 Mexican children revealed that, at 24 months of age, but not at 18 nor at 30 months of age, those who were raised in households with larger numbers of children had more stereotypical vocabularies than those with fewer children. This finding is discussed in light of the hypothesis that communicative pressure may shape early word production; it suggests that bidirectional effects between social cognition and language acquisition are present at 2 years of age.
Highlights
Language has evolved to facilitate communication between human beings
We can ask when children recognize that different interlocutors have distinct vocabulary sizes and compositions, and when they can use these social cognition skills to adjust their communicative acts to the differing language skills of others
Indices of lexical diversity were computed in both production and comprehension for 550 infants and toddlers
Summary
For a communicative act to be successful, an alignment is needed between a speaker’s utterances and a listener’s receptive lexicon. Adults addressing a young child typically attune their utterances to fit the child’s limited lexicon (Baumwell et al, 1997). This behavior implies social cognition skills, in particular the ability to recognize limitations in other people’s language. Infants and young children embark on the process of learning a language with immature social cognition skills. We can ask when children recognize that different interlocutors have distinct vocabulary sizes and compositions, and when they can use these social cognition skills to adjust their communicative acts to the differing language skills of others
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