9 - Child’s Play

Summary

This chapter examines reference used by and with children and explores creative and playful uses of reference. Following an overview of how uses of reference develop as children’s language skills develop, we discuss the significance of the tendency for children to underspecify their intended referent in the use of referring expressions as compared to adults who do not do this, but who will sometimes overspecify the referent. Drawing on a broad range of examples, we examine evidence of how children quickly get to a stage where they can exploit reference for their own purposes or just to have fun. The atypical use of referring expressions in children’s literature is discussed and we examine the reasons for the authors’ deliberate exploitations of known conventions in relation to reference.