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Children mix direct and indirect speech: evidence from pronoun comprehension

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 June 2015

FRANZISKA KÖDER  and
EMAR MAIER
FRANZISKA KÖDER*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Philosophy, Center for Language and Cognition Groningen (CLCG), University of Groningen, the Netherlands
EMAR MAIER
Affiliation:
Faculty of Philosophy, University of Groningen, the Netherlands
*
Address for correspondence: Franziska Köder, Faculty of Philosophy, Oude Boteringestraat 52, 9712 GL Groningen, The Netherlands. e-mail: f.koder@rug.nl
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Abstract

This study investigates children's acquisition of the distinction between direct speech (Elephant said, “I get the football”) and indirect speech (Elephant said that he gets the football), by measuring children's interpretation of first, second, and third person pronouns. Based on evidence from various linguistic sources, we hypothesize that the direct–indirect distinction is acquired relatively late. We also predict more mistakes for third person pronouns compared to first and second person pronouns. We tested 136 Dutch-speaking children between four and twelve in a referent selection task and found that children interpret pronouns in direct speech predominantly as in indirect speech, supporting our hypothesis about a late acquisition of the direct–indirect distinction. In addition, we found differences between I, you, and he that deviate from a simple first and second vs. third person split. We discuss our results in the light of cross-linguistic findings of direct–indirect mixing.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 43 , Issue 4 , July 2016 , pp. 843 - 866
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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