Abstract
The purpose of this contribution is to investigate the advent of language in the light of the appropriation of the cultural uses of the material objects related to material culture and the constitution of their public and shared meanings linked to their uses. First, we suggest that the Object Pragmatics paradigm offers a framework which allows us to take into account the uses of objects in daily life as a site of social conventions, communication and public and shared meanings. Second, we would like to underline the key role of the adult’s mediations in the child’s ability to evolve towards linguistic development. This contribution will discuss the notion of scenario involving primarily the object, as a possible semiotic tool to support the child’s transition to language. We will finally illustrate that it is possible to take into consideration the mastery of conventional uses of the object in the child’s ability to engage in a scenario and then to move towards communication and speech development. These issues will be addressed in the context of a research project which focuses on the observation of children interacting with an adult at 16, 20 and 24 months. These longitudinal data were collected by video in a semi-experimental triadic interaction design. The triadic interaction is considered as a relevant unit for the observation and analysis of the role of material culture in speech development, suggesting the existence of new mechanisms to be taken into account in addition to the interactive conditions largely mentioned in literature.
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Notes
For reasons of simplicity, later in the text, the term Language will be used for Articulated Language.
Object Pragmatics consider that early development is cultural-historical before language through the appropriation by infants of canonical uses related to objects artifacts, transmitted through the adult’s signs in adult-infant-object triadic interaction. Involving two familiar objects (a “vintage” Fisher Price telephone and a sorter box), this study shows that the canonical uses of objects are gradually constructed in triadic interaction. At the age of 7 months, the object is not yet used in a canonical way. At the age of 10 months, the child begins to be able to use the object in its canonical dimensions (proto-canonical). The child appropriates the first canonical uses of objects at the age of 13 months.
The works of Trevarthen on intersubjectivity have been pioneers in the field of early development emphasizing the importance of social and interactive aspects in the ability of the child to develop her communication skills. The importance of the first interaction with the adult as dialogue premises (“primary intersubjectivity” (Trevarthen and Hubley 1978; Trevarthen 1979; Bruner 1983)) has been excellently described. However, the works on secondary intersubjectivity involving triadic child-adult-object relationships bring no further explanation about the role of objects and their public or shared meaning in the building communication.
This study shows that the adult employs different semiotic tools, which pave the way for language based on joint activity around the object. At this stage of our enquiry, we have analyzed two different forms: scenario and labeling sessions (Béguin 2016).
In the theater of the absurd for example, the code, which permits to show that this is not a realistic play, is given in the first minutes, allowing the spectator to be warned about the level in which it is possible to understand the play.
Mainstream perspectives in literature talking about symbolic play focus on representation, considering the child’s ability to enter into symbolic play as a new mental competence (for Piaget, pretend play is the product of semiotic function as language, deferred imitation or mental picture (e.g. Piaget 1946; Stambak and Sinclair 1990). Additional works conducted on Object Pragmatics (Rodríguez and Moro 2002; Rodríguez et al. 2014) have suggested that first symbols emerge from canonical uses of objects and therefore develop a perspective in which symbolic uses take roots in a previous ability to master conventions through object uses. This alternative view about symbol puts forward the importance of meanings related to objects in the child’s ability to emancipate itself through symbolic behaviours.
The special characteristics of the objects selected for these observations can play an important role in these first results. Indeed, the objects that constitute the dining set concern an event of everyday life very familiar to the child and common knowledge about these objects whose uses are largely shared. We would not be able to achieve the same results with another kind of object, especially for the observation of a chain of symbolic uses. This consideration points out the importance of the characteristics of the objects in the child’s ability to appropriate uses.
The ELAN software is a professional tool for the creation of complex annotations on video and audio resources developed by the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in the Netherlands: http://tla.mpi.nl/tools/tla-tools/elan/
These scenarii evolve in different manners: i) they are first initiated by the adult and then appropriated and initiated by the child, ii) the shared meaning regarding object uses evolves, allowing the child to share meaning at the communicative level, iii) the dominance of the semiotic system which organizes the interaction goes from material system to communicative systems.
Putting the plates on the pan is what we consider as a protocanonical use. This kind of use attests to the child’s knowledge about specific characteristics of the objet and refers to the inference “if something is round then put it into a round container” organized around the social meaning of tidying up.
This sharing of meanings grounded in materiality is built through communication via the adult’s mediation, emphasising the interrelationship between cognitive and communicative development in the pre-verbal stage.
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Thesis directed by Professor Christiane Moro (Lausanne University) and entitled: The child’s entry into language: from practices around object uses to linguistic practices.
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Béguin, M. Object Pragmatics and Language Development. Integr. psych. behav. 50, 603–620 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-016-9361-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-016-9361-7