Knowledge and Language PDF
Preview Knowledge and Language
KNOWLEDGE AND LANGUAGE Editedby I. KURCZ G.W.SHUGAR FacultyofPsychology UniversityofWarsaw Warsaw,Poland and J.H.DANKS DepartmentofPsychology KentStateUniversity Kent, OH, U.S.A. N·H (P~C ~ ~ 1986 NORTH-HOLLAND AMSTERDAM ·NEWYORK.OXFORD ·TOKYO ©ElsevierSciencePublishersB.Y.,1986 Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced,storedina retrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyform orbyanymeans,electronic,mechanical, photocopying,recordingorotherwise,withoutthepriorpermissionofthecopyrightowner. ISBN: 0 444 70066 8 Publishers: ELSEVIERSCIENCEPUBLISHERSB.Y. P.O.Box1991 1000BZAmsterdam TheNetherlands SoledistributorsfortheU.S.A. andCanada: ELSEVIERSCIENCEPUBLISHINGCOMPANY,INC. 52VanderbiltAvenue NewYork,N.Y.10017 U.S.A. LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicatsmData Knowledge and language. (Advances in psychology 39) Includes index. 1. Psycholinguistics. 2. Language acquisition. 3. Cognition. I. Kurcz, Ida. II. Shugar, G. W. (Grace W.) III. Danks, Joseph H. IV. Series: Advances in psychology (Amsterdam, Netherlands) 39. P37.K58 1986 401'.9 86-13565 ISBN 0-444-70066-8 (U.S.) PRINTED INTHE NETHERLANDS v PREFACE The theme of this book, embodied in the title, is knowledge and language. It arose from the conviction that language use involves knowledge of the world and that these relations are crucial for our understanding of language use and the workings of the human mind. The theme was adopted for an International Conference on Knowledge and Language held in Jachranka near Warsaw in June, 1984, organized by the Psycholinguistic Unit at the Faculty of Psychology, University of Warsaw. The conference organizers felt that this theme would be a rallying point for investigators of diverse orientations. And so it was. The con ference was attended by about 90 invited participants from 16 countries. Not all those who accepted the invitation from vari ous countries were able to attend. The conference was organized in three symposia running in parallel: General Psychology of Language led by Ida Kurcz, Child Language led by Grace Wales Shugar, and Neurolinguistics led by Danuta Kadzielawa. Three special guest speakers at plenary sessions were Professor James J. Jenkins of South Florida, USA, Professor John Macnamara of McGill University, Canada, and Professor Edward Mueller, Boston University, USA. From among the more than 60 conference papers, the editors selected 28 which presented broad perspectives on ioportant problems and which made substantial contributions to current discussion of the central theme. Our aim was to bring together a diversity of approaches to the theme from specialists in var ious parts of the world, from Europe, Australia, and North Ame~ ica. Unfortunately, many interesting papers presented at the conference could not be included. The papers from the neurolin guistic symposium were omitted in order to restrict the scope vi Preface of tho book. However, almost all the conference materials are being published in Polish by Ossolineum, Wroclaw. in two vol umes: I. General Psychology of Language and Neurolinguistics edited by Ida Kurcz, Jerzy Bobryk, and Danuta Kadzielawa and II. Child Languago edited by Ida Kurcz, Grace Wales Shugar, and Barbara Bokus. The result of the editorial selection is this book, a heterogeneous collection of chapters, through which flows a distinct undercurrent advancing the common theme. Many of the original papers have been thoroughly revised in the course of editorial consultation. In revising the papers, au thors drew on the discussions at the conference and so the ar ticles are linked together in several ways at several levels. The chapters are grouped into five sections reflecting var iations on the main theme of knowledge and language: I. Seman tics and Concepts, II. Cognitive Representation and Language Processing, III. Acquisition within and across Languages, IV. Social Cognition and Language Communication, and V. Metalinguis tic Knowledge and Cognitive Functioning. A controversy underlying several of the chapters in Part I (Semantics and Concepts) is the proper relation between formal, logical descriptions of language and psychological analyses of language use. Should the logical analyses direct, constrain, guide, or inform the psychological? Although discussed in the abstract in some chapters, the answer likely lies in the empir ical results reported. Do the logical analyses enhallce our un derstandinf of the phenomena, and if so, how? Several of the chapters provide evidence by which readers can draw their own answers to the question. Another subtheme is how the structure of linguistic concepts relates to knowledge about the referents of those concepts. Knowledge and language are not separate do mains, except in the minds of theorists. How then do people re present their knowledge about the world and use that knowledge for communication? Answering this question is, of course, cen tral to the main theme for the entire book, indeed, for the whole cognitive enterprise. The chapters in Part II (Cognitive ERrp.'1p.nt.flt.iol1 and Language Processing) carry discussion of the knowledge and lan guage theme to another level of linguistic analysis, namely, sentences and texts. Sentences and texts are not understood in cognitive isolation. The question then becomes how world knowl edge constrains and facilitates language understanding. Some of the papers focus on sentences, especially those that seem like they might cause special problems for comprehenders, such as metaphor and ambiguity. Other chapters consider how a reader's world knowledge is used to understand texts, especially diffi cult ones which pose some special problem to the reader before they can be completely understood. Still other chapters inves tigate how information presented in different forms and modali ties becomes integrated in the comprehender's mind to form a common knowledge store. In all cases, how knowledge interacts with language use and how language integrates with the knowledge base are the overarching questions. Part III (Acquisition within and across Languages) presents a selection of papers which emphasize various aspects of the language acquisition process both from the point of view of the language under acquisition and from that of the child who ac quires language as a cognitive and pragmatic instrument. The controversial issues are the role of pragmatic as well as se mantic demands the child places on the language and the signif icance of individual pathways (differences) through the acqui sition forest. The range of languages discussed in these papers provide different vantage points for a comparative view of the acquisition process. Part IV (Social Cognition and Language Communication) covers a wide variety of topics under its heading. The chapters are mainly concerned with the complex relationships betvleen the de velopment, transmission, and compreh2nsion of intention and meaning, and the growth of the representation of social knowl edge. The chronological span ranges from the prelinguistic peri od through early to later social communication through language. An underlying theme discussed in several chapters is the essen tial nature of interpersonal meaning and the processes whereby that meaning is shared. Also discussed is detailed research on viii Preface the outcomes of social cognition in the domain of social con trol. Part V (Metalinguistic Knowledge and Cognitive Functioning) follows three seemingly divergent themes: how metalinguistic knowledge and cognitive-linguistic development interrelate in general; how the early acquisition of both written and spoken languages in parallel mutually affect each other in the course of cognitive development; and how early learning of different languages simultaneously affects cognitive development. The deep underlying theme is the impact acquiring a language (or two languages) has on the development of the child's knowledge structures. l1etalinguistic knowledge is not linguistic knowl edge per se, but is knowledge about a very important component of the child's world. Likewise, acquiring a language (or lan guages) affects directly the sorts of knowledge the child is capable of learning as well as how that knowledge is organized. It is the editors' sincerest hope that our understanding of the relation between knowledge and language is advanced by the diversity of perspectives, the variety of argumentation and theoretical analyses, and the broad spectrum of empirical stud ies represented in these chapters. This diversity greatly en hanced the participants' interactions at the conference. We hope that the exchanges initiated at the conference contribute to a broadened base for understanding knowledge and language. Acknowledgements The editors wish to express their thanks to the Department of Psychology at the Polish Academy of Sciences and personally to its head, Professor Janusz Reykowski, for providing finan cial and organizational support, and to the Faculty of Psychol ogy at the University of Warsaw for assistance in the work of preparing and conducting the conference. Joseph Danks also ex presses his thanks to the Department of Psychology at Standford University for providing such a hospitable environment for him to do most of his editing while on sabbatical leave. He also thanks the National Academy of Sciences (USA), the Polish Acad emy of Sciences, and the National Institute of Education for Preface ix supporting his work at the conference and during the editing of this book. Ida Kurcz and Grace Wales Shugar wish to express their thanks to the Department of Psychology at the Polish Acad emy of Sciences for support in their editorial work. The ediwrs also wish to express our gratitude to the editor at North-Hol land, Dr. K. Michielsen, for his patience and understanding trhoughout preparation of this book. Doguslaw Jankowski, who was responsible for technical editing and preparation of the camera-ready copy, deserves the heart-felt thanks of the editors and the authors for converting the diversely prepared manu scripts into the final copy. October, 1985 Ida Kurcz Grace Wales Shugar Joseph H. Danks xi LIST OFCONTRIBUTORS BARBARA BOKUS Faculty of Psychology, University of Warsaw, Stawki 5/7, 00-183 Warszawa, Poland LUC CARITE Center of Studies in Cognitive Psychology, University of Paris-Sud, Centre Scientifique D'Orsay, B~timent 335, 91405 Orsay Cedex, France AGNES CHARVILLAT Laboratory of Experimental Psychology, University of Paris V, 28, rue Serpente, 75006 Paris, France JOSEPH H. DANKS Department of Psychology, Kent State University, Kent, OH 44242, U.S.A. LAUREL END Salve Regina College, New Port, RI, U.S.A. JOHANNES ENGELKAMP FR 6.4. Psychology, Social and Environmental Sciences, University of Saarland, D-6600 SaarbrUcken, F.R.G. SUITBERT ERTEL Institute of Psychology, Georg-August University, Gosslerstrasse 14, 3400 Gottingen, F.R.G. NORMAN FREEMAN Department of Psychology, University of Bristol, 8-10 Berkeley Square, Bristol Bs8 1HH, U.K. SAM GLUCKSBERG Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Green Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544, U.S.A. KARIN GOEDE Central Institute of Linguistics, A~ademy of Sciences, Prenzlauer Promenade 149-152, 1100 Berlin, G.D.R. JOACHIM HOFFMANN Psychology Area, Central Institute of Cybernetics and Information Processes, Academy of Sciences, Kurstrasse 33, 1086 Berlin, G.D.R. xii ListofContributors JAMES J. JENKINS Department of Psychology, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33620, U.S.A. MICHELE KAIL Laboratory of Experimental Psychology, University of Paris V, 28, rue Serpente, 75006 Paris, France OLGA KATCHAN Department of Psychology, University of Sydney, Sydney, N.S.W. 2006, Australia IDA KURCZ Department of Psychology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Plac Ma2achowskiego 1, 00-063 Warszawa, Poland JEAN-FRANCOIS LE NY Center of Studies in Cognitive Psychology, University of Paris-Sud, Centre Scientifique D'Orsay, BAtiment 335, 91405 Orsay Cedex, France JOHN MACNAMARA Department of Psychology, McGill University, 1205 Dr. Penfield Avenue, Montreal, PQ H3A lBl, Canada HANNA MARCZEWSKA Institute of Applied Linguistics, University of Warsaw, Browarna 8/10, 00-927 Warszawa, Poland EDWARD MUELLER Department of Psychology, Boston University, 64 Cummington Street, Boston, MA 02215, U.S.A. TULLIA MUSATTI Institute of Psychology of CNR, via dei Monti Tiburtini 509, 00157 Roma, Italy KATHY PEZDEK Department of Psychology, Claremont Graduate School, Claremont, CA 91711, U.S.A. SEBASTIEN POITRENAUD Center of Studies in Cognitive Psychology, University of Paris-Sud, Centre Scientifique D'Orsay, Batiment 335, 91405 Orsay Cedex, France ANNA POLKOWSKA Department of Psychology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Flac Ma2achowskiego 1, 00-063 Warszawa, Poland MARIA PRZETACZNIK-GIEROWSKA Institute of Psychology, Jagiellonian University, Go2ebia 13, 31-007 Krak6w, Poland MI\I,I\ F. RITTMAN D~r~rtment of Psychology, Kent State University, Kent, on Ij4242, U.S.A. ListofContributors xiii MAUREEN M. SHIELDS Institute of Education, Department of Child Development, University of London, 25 Woburn Square, London WC1H OAA, U.K. GRACE W. SHUGAR Faculty of Psychology, University of Warsaw, Stawki 5/7, 00-183 Warszawa, Poland ANNE SINCLAIR Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Geneva, 24, rue General-Dufour, 1211 Geneve 4, Switzerland MAGDALENA SMOCZYNSKA Chair of General and Indo-European Linguistics, Jagiellonian University, Mickiewicza 9/11, 31-120 Krakow, Poland RAGNHILD SODERBERGH Child Language Research Institute, Department of Linguistics, Lund University, Helgonabacken 12, S-22362 Lund, Sweden JACQUELINE A. STEDMON Department of Psychology, University of Bristol, 8-10 Berkeley Square, Bristol Bs8 lHH, U.K. JULIANA STOJANOVA-TRAJKOVA Sofijski Universitet "Kl. Ohridski", Fakultet Slavianski Filologii, Katedra Savremenen Balgarski Ezik, Bul. "Ruski" 15, Sofia 1000, BUlgaria PATRIZIA TABOSSI Department of Psychology, University of Bologna, V. le Berti-Pichat 5, 40127 Bologna, Italy JORMA 'I'OrVAINEN Fennicum, University of Turku, 20500 Turku, Finland RICHARD M. WEIST Department of Psychology, State University College, Fredonia, NY 14063, U.S.A. MICHAL ZAGRODZKI Department of Psychology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Plac Malachowskiego 1, 00-063 Warszawa, Poland
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