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

<p>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 <italic>pang</italic> ‘side’ before <italic>you</italic> ‘right’ is accounted for by the cognitive complexity of the localizers. Cognitive egocentricity biased children under 4;0 towards the aligned strategy in interpreting <italic>qian</italic> ‘front’ and <italic>hou</italic> ‘back’, and caused 6-year-olds to rely on the viewer-centered frame of reference in interpreting <italic>zuo</italic> ‘left’ and <italic>you</italic> ‘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.</p><p class="summaryheading"><span class="summaryheading">提要:</span></p><abstract xml:lang="zh"><p>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。</p>

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