The Role of Discourse and Perceptual Cues in the Choice of Referential Expressions in English Preschoolers, School-Age Children, and Adults

Abstract

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 type of referential expression used, although even school-age children produced fewer lexical NPs than adults in two-referent contexts. By contrast, taking into account the perceptual availability of the referent to the listener was the variable that posed the largest number of difficulties to all groups of children; even the oldest six-year-olds did not reliably produce a lexical NP when the listener could not see the referent. These findings contribute new experimental evidence on children's developing sensitivity to different types of discourse and perceptual cues in argument realization.

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