Cognition and perception in the linguistic encoding of space in child Mandarin

This study examines the linguistic encoding of space in Mandarin-speaking children based on a corpus study and a series of experimental tasks. It is shown that cognitive development plays a significant role in the development of spatial language. The acquisition of pang ‘side’ before you ‘right’ is accounted for by the cognitive complexity of the localizers. Cognitive egocentricity biased children under 4;0 towards the aligned strategy in interpreting qian ‘front’ and hou ‘back’, and caused 6-year-olds to rely on the viewer-centered frame of reference in interpreting zuo ‘left’ and you ‘right’ when the reference entity has inherent orientation. Our findings show that young children are sensitive to the Figure-Ground asymmetry, a cognitive constraint, and perceptual cues influence children’s choice of reference strategies.

提要:

基于语料库研究和一系列实验, 本文探讨汉语普通话儿童的空间编码情 况。我们发现认知发展在空间语言习得中起到重要作用。方位词内在的 认知难度可以解释为什么儿童先习得“旁”后习得“右”。因为受认知 上的“自我中心”影响, 四岁以下的儿童会倾向用顺向策略来解读“前” 和“后”；当参照物没有内在方向时, 六岁儿童主要依靠以视者为中心 的参照系统来理解“左”和“右”。我们还发现儿童对目标物-参照物 非对称性很早就非常敏感, 证实这是一个认知上的普遍制约。知觉上的 线索也会影响儿童对参照策略的选择。