SBE-RCUK Lead Agency - The Development of Lexical Flexibility

SBE-RCUK 牵头机构 - 词汇灵活性的发展

• 批准号: ES/N005635/1
• 负责人: Hugh Rabagliati
• 金额: $ 42.27万
• 依托单位: University of Edinburgh
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2016 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FN005635%2F1
• 关键词: SBE; RCUK; Lead; Agency; Development

One of the most striking features of human communication is our ability to use words in flexible and creative ways: We often use the same sound to mean multiple different things. For instance, we hammer using a hammer, eat chicken that comes from a chicken, and drink from glasses that are made of glass. These flexible uses of words provide us with a vivid expressive power: we can use a word with one meaning while alluding to all the rest. But while flexibility may make language more expressive, researchers have often assumed that it also makes language harder to learn. In particular, if a word's meaning is a flexible, moving target, then how are children ever supposed to learn it in a reasonable amount of time?This has led a number of researchers to conclude that the words of an "ideal" language would be unambiguous. But in recent work we have developed a theory that suggests this assumption is backwards: Flexible uses of words do not impede children from learning words, in fact, they appear to facilitate it. The theory is best explained by an example. Imagine that you are a parent of a small child, and you want your child to avoid hitting their head on the leg of a nearby table. Your child does not yet know what the leg is called, but has learned that long, straight, supportive body parts are called "legs". When they hear you say "Watch out for the leg" and do not see any relevant body parts, they can guess that "leg" refers to something related to the body part, and thus might have a reasonable chance of guessing what you mean. By contrast, if you had to use a different, unambiguous word for each concept that you wanted to express, you might have to say something like "Watch out for the dax". Since your child has no idea what "dax" means, they are unlikely to be able to heed your warning.Consistent with this, we have uncovered initial evidence that children are able to master flexible language with minimal difficulty. This project aims to understand how children are able to do that, based on a combination of tightly-controlled behavioural research on developing children, and the annotation and analysis of transcripts of children's and parents' speech.First, we will build on and analyze existing databases of children's conversations with parents and others. We will code these databases for some of the particular features of flexible words, and then use advanced statistical methods to examine the linguistic environment that adults provide for children, and how children respond to that environment.Second, we will conduct a series of studies that assess how children between 2- and 4-years manage to learn and understand the different meanings of flexible words, while at the same time keeping these meanings distinct in their heads. For example, how do children learn that "chicken" can label both an animal and a kind of meat, while also understanding that things that are true of the animal need not be true of the meat (and vice versa)?Third, we will conduct experiments to explore how children learn to use flexible words in creative ways that they could not have heard before. Linguists have provided tantalizing examples of children's coinages, from "Broom my mess" to "Cracker my soup". Our experiments will explore how children learn to use words in these ways, providing insight into the origins of the type of linguistic creativity that infuses poetry and oratory. Our final series of studies will examine what the consequences of flexibility are for children's cognitive development more generally. In particular, our theory raises the surprising possibility that the particular ways that flexible words are used in a language may encourage children to learn about the world in specific ways. For example the fact that we "shovel" snow using a "shovel" suggests that shovels are made for shoveling. Our last studies assess whether such linguistic clues affect how children explore and learn about objects.

人类交流最显著的特征之一是我们能够以灵活和创造性的方式使用词语：我们经常使用同一个声音来表示多种不同的事物。例如，我们用锤子锤，吃鸡，喝玻璃做的杯子。这些灵活的词语用法为我们提供了生动的表达能力：我们可以用一个词的一个意思，同时暗示所有其他的意思。但是，尽管灵活性可能使语言更具表达力，但研究人员通常认为，它也使语言更难学习。特别是，如果一个单词的意思是一个灵活的，移动的目标，那么孩子们如何在合理的时间内学习它呢？这使得许多研究人员得出结论，“理想”语言的单词应该是明确的。但在最近的研究中，我们提出了一种理论，认为这种假设是倒退的：灵活使用单词并不会阻碍孩子学习单词，事实上，它们似乎有助于学习单词。想象一下，你是一个小孩子的父母，你希望你的孩子避免把头撞到附近桌子的腿上。你的孩子还不知道腿叫什么，但已经学会了长，直，支持身体部位称为“腿”。当他们听到你说“当心腿”，但没有看到任何相关的身体部位时，他们可以猜测“腿”指的是与身体部位有关的东西，因此可能有合理的机会猜测你的意思。相比之下，如果你必须用一个不同的，明确的词来表达你想表达的每个概念，你可能不得不说“小心dax”。由于你的孩子不知道“dax”是什么意思，他们不太可能注意到你的警告。与此一致，我们发现了初步证据，表明孩子能够以最小的困难掌握灵活的语言。该项目旨在通过对儿童发展过程中严格控制的行为研究，以及对儿童和父母的言语记录进行注释和分析，了解儿童是如何做到这一点的。首先，我们将建立和分析现有的儿童与父母和其他人的对话数据库。我们将对这些数据库进行编码，以了解灵活词汇的一些特殊特征，然后使用先进的统计方法来研究成人为儿童提供的语言环境，以及儿童对这种环境的反应。其次，我们将进行一系列研究，评估2至4岁的儿童如何学习和理解灵活词汇的不同含义，同时在他们的头脑中保持这些含义的清晰。例如，儿童如何学习“鸡”既可以标记动物，也可以标记某种肉类，同时又理解动物的真实情况不一定适用于肉类（反之亦然）？第三，我们将进行实验，探索孩子们如何学习使用灵活的单词在创造性的方式，他们不可能听到过。语言学家们提供了许多有趣的儿童杜撰的例子，从“扫帚我的烂摊子”到“饼干我的汤”。我们的实验将探索儿童如何学习以这些方式使用单词，从而深入了解注入诗歌和演讲的语言创造力的起源。我们最后一系列的研究将更广泛地研究灵活性对儿童认知发展的影响。特别是，我们的理论提出了一种令人惊讶的可能性，即灵活的单词在语言中的特定使用方式可能会鼓励儿童以特定的方式了解世界。例如，我们用“铲子”“铲”雪的事实表明铲子是用来铲雪的。我们最近的研究评估了这些语言线索是否会影响儿童探索和学习物体的方式。

项目成果

The profile of abstract rule learning in infancy: Meta-analytic and experimental evidence.

• DOI: 10.1111/desc.12704
• 发表时间: 2019-01
• 期刊: Developmental science
• 影响因子: 3.7
• 作者: Rabagliati H;Ferguson B;Lew-Williams C
• 通讯作者: Lew-Williams C

Two-year-olds' eye movements reflect confidence in their understanding of words

两岁孩子的眼球运动反映了他们对单词理解的信心

• DOI: 10.31234/osf.io/pd6xh
• 发表时间: 2021
• 作者: Dautriche I

Knowing How You Know: Toddlers Reevaluate Words Learned From an Unreliable Speaker.

• DOI: 10.1162/opmi_a_00038
• 发表时间: 2021
• 期刊: Open mind : discoveries in cognitive science
• 作者: Dautriche I;Goupil L;Smith K;Rabagliati H
• 通讯作者: Rabagliati H

sj-pdf-1-pss-10.1177_09567976221105208 - Supplemental material for Two-Year-Olds' Eye Movements Reflect Confidence in Their Understanding of Words

sj-pdf-1-pss-10.1177_09567976221105208 - 两岁儿童眼球运动的补充材料反映了他们对单词理解的信心

• DOI: 10.25384/sage.21176159
• 发表时间: 2022
• 作者: Dautriche I

Two-Year-Olds' Eye Movements Reflect Confidence in Their Understanding of Words.

两岁孩子的眼球运动反映了他们对单词理解的信心。

• DOI: 10.1177/09567976221105208
• 发表时间: 2022
• 期刊: Psychological science
• 影响因子: 8.2
• 作者: Dautriche I