Generic Language in Development

人类知识的一种核心形式是类属知识，即关于类别的一般信息，从动物到数字，从天体到机器，从经济系统到社会系统。 人类进步的标志是寻求理解广泛适用于同一类别中不同情况的原则。 向儿童表达常识的基本手段是通过语言，特别是通用名词短语（例如，“昆虫是六条腿的。 先前的工作已经证明，通用名词短语在父母对儿童的讲话中很常见，用于不同的文化和语言背景（美国，中国、秘鲁），由接受最低限度语言输入的儿童（没有接触手语的聋哑儿童）产生，学龄前儿童适当理解，并储存在儿童的长期记忆中。 这些组成部分都表明，泛型是重要的，有意义的，早期获得的，并有可能影响儿童的世界知识。 然而，先前的工作泛型留下两个主要问题没有回答：（1）通用语言是否影响和指导儿童的概念，或通用语言只是反映儿童的概念？ (2)儿童时期习得通用语言的过程是怎样的？ 本项目将调查这两个核心问题。 本研究旨在探讨在不同的词汇条件下，给予幼儿一个新的概念，以探讨类属词和标签对幼儿分类推理能力的影响。 此外，一组实验将测试关于泛型学习过程的相互竞争的说法。 这些研究将利用实验研究和自然主义语言分析，就2至5岁儿童的概念和语言之间的联系提供集中和准确的证据，该项目将通过提供急需的信息，说明父母和教师使用的语言（通用与特定）如何影响儿童获得和概括新信息，从而促进更有效的学习策略。 这些发现将有助于我们更好地了解儿童如何学习语言，并对科学教育具有启示意义。 此外，了解儿童如何以及何时在类别内形成概括，有助于形成定型观念，以及儿童如何理解人类的多样性。 最后，这项工作将使整个社会受益，为科学家、教育工作者和家长提供对儿童早期认知过程以及语言对这些过程的影响的理解。 了解这些基本过程在正常发育的儿童中是如何展开的，也为最终了解这些过程是如何出错提供了一个框架，例如，在有特定语言障碍的儿童中。

A central form of human knowledge is generic knowledge, that is, general information about categories, from animals to numbers, from celestial objects to machines, from economic systems to social systems. Human progress is marked by a search for understanding principles that apply broadly across varying instances within a category. A fundamental means of expressing general knowledge to children is via language, and in particular generic noun phrases (e.g., "Insects are 6-legged"). Prior work has demonstrated that generic noun phrases are frequent in parental speech to children, used in diverse cultural and linguistic contexts (U.S., China, Peru), produced by children exposed to minimal linguistic input (deaf children not exposed to sign language), understood appropriately by preschool-aged children, and stored by children in long-term memory. These component pieces all suggest that generics are important, meaningful, acquired early, and have the potential to influence children's world knowledge. However, prior work on generics leaves two major questions unanswered: (1) Does generic language affect and guide children's concepts, or does generic language merely reflect children's concepts? (2) What is the process by which generic language is acquired in childhood? The project will investigate both these core issues. An in-depth training study will teach young children a new concept under varied wording conditions to chart the effects of generics and labeling on children's categorical reasoning. Furthermore, a set of experiments will test competing claims regarding the process by which generics are learned. These studies will make use of experimental research and naturalistic language analyses to provide converging and precise evidence regarding the links among concepts and language in children between 2 and 5 years of age.The project will promote more effective learning strategies by providing much-needed information on how the language that parents and teachers use (generic vs. specific) affects how children acquire and generalize new information. These findings will help us understand better how children learn language, and have implications for science education. Furthermore, understanding how and when children form generalizations within categories informs the development of stereotyping, as well as how children come to understand human diversity. Finally, the work will benefit society at large, by providing scientists, educators, and parents with an understanding of children's early cognitive processes and the effects of language on such processes. Understanding how these basic processes unfold in normally developing children also provides a framework for eventually understanding how they can go awry, for example, in children with specific language impairment.