Publication Summary
Two studies investigated the choice of referential expressions in a referential communication game for English-speaking adults, preschoolers, and young school-age children. The aim was to determine to what extent children and adults rely on discourse and perceptual information in their use of lexical noun phrases (NPs) vs. pronouns and null reference. Study 1 crossed two variables: the focus structure of the question asked (sentence focus vs. predicate focus) and the perceptual availability of the referent to the listener (listener looking vs. listener not looking). Study 2 manipulated the number of referents (one vs. two) and the perceptual availability of the referent(s) to the listener (listener looking vs. listener not looking). The results show that adults and children alike were very sensitive to the discourse cue provided by the focus structure of the question asked; participants used more lexical NPs with sentence focus constructions. The number of referents was also a reliable predictor of the ty...
CAER Authors
Prof. Ludovica Serratrice
Reading University - Professor of multilingualism