Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-5g6vh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T12:36:39.569Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The development of locative comprehension in Spanish*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Peggy S. Conner  and
Robin S. Chapman
Peggy S. Conner
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin–Madison
Robin S. Chapman
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin–Madison
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Forty monolingual Spanish-speaking Peruvian children ages 3; 6–5; 5 were given a search task to test comprehension of six locative phrases depicting the four spatial relations in front of, in back of, beside and under. Performance improved with age and was best for under (debajo de) and poorest on beside (al costado de, al lado de). There was no evidence that locatives lacking object part terms (delante de for in front of and al costado de for beside) resulted in poorer performance than locatives that included the object part labels (enfrente de, al lado de). Nor was there evidence to support the positive pole hypothesis that in front of items would be easier than behind. Performance was best when the children themselves were the reference object, next best with a fronted object, and poorest with a nonfronted object, suggesting that preschoolers may understand projective locatives with respect to the reference object's intrinsic orientation, rather than imposing their own point of view.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , February 1985 , pp. 109 - 123
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1985

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Abkarian, G. G. (1982). Comprehension of deictic locatives: the object ‘behind’ it. JPsycholingRes 11. 229–45.Google Scholar
Abkarian, G. G. (1983). More negative findings for positive prepositions. JChLang 10. 415–30.Google ScholarPubMed
Chapman, R. S. (1978). Comprehension strategies in children. In Kavanagh, J. F. & Strange, W. (eds), Speech and language in the laboratory, school, and clinic. Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T.Google Scholar
Clark, E. V. (1973). Non-linguistic strategies and the acquisition of meanings. Cognition 2. 161–2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, E. V. (1977). Strategies and the mapping problem in first language acquisition. In Macnamara, J. (ed.), Language, learning and thought. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Clark, E. V. (1980). Here's the top: nonlinguistic strategies in the acquisition of orientational terms. ChDev 51. 329–38.Google Scholar
Clark, H. (1973). Space, time, semantics, and the child. In Moore, T. E. (ed.), Cognitive development and the acquisition of language. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Cook, N. (1978). In, on and under revisited again. PRCLD 15. 38–45.Google Scholar
Fisher, C. B. & Braine, L. G. (1981). Children's left–right concepts: generalization across figure and location. ChDev 52. 451–6.Google Scholar
Flavell, J., Shipstead, S. & Craft, K. (1978). Young children's knowledge about visual perception: hiding objects from others. ChDev 49. 1208–11.Google ScholarPubMed
Harris, L. & Strommen, E. (1972). The role of front–back features in children's ‘front’, ‘back’ and ‘beside’ placements of objects. MPQ 18. 259–71.Google Scholar
Hodun, A. (1975). Comprehension and the development of spatial and temporal sequence terms. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Wisconsin–Madison.Google Scholar
Holzman, M. (1981). Where is under: from memories of instances to abstract featural concepts. JPsycholingRes 10. 421–39.Google Scholar
Hoogenraad, R., Grieve, R., Baldwin, P. & Campbell, R. (1978). Comprehension as an interactive process. In Campbell, R. & Smith, P. (eds), Recent advances in the psychology of language. New York: Plenum Press.Google Scholar
Johnston, J. (1973). Spatial notions and the child's use of locatives in an elicitation task. Paper presented at the Stanford Child Language Research Forum, Stanford, California.Google Scholar
Johnston, J. (1979). A study of spatial thought and expression: in back and in front. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Johnston, J. (in press). Cognitive prerequisites: the evidence from children learning English. In Slobin, D. (ed.), Cross-linguistic studies of language acquisition. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Johnston, J. & Slobin, D. (1978). The development of locative expressions in English, Italian, Serbo-Croatian, and Turkish. JChLang 6. 529–45.Google Scholar
Kuczaj, S. A. & Maratsos, M. P. (1975). On the acquisition of front, back and side. ChDev 46. 202–10.Google Scholar
Levine, S. C. & Carey, S. (1982). Up front; the acquisition of a concept and a word. JChLang 9. 645–58.Google ScholarPubMed
McNeil, M. & Prescott, T. (1979). The revised token test. Baltimore: University Park Press.Google Scholar
Piaget, J. & Inhelder, B. (1963). The child's conception of space. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Wanska, S. K. (1977). The relationship of the development of spatial concepts to the acquisition of locative meaning. Technical Report N. 415, Wisconsin Center for Cognitive Learning, University of Wisconsin–Madison.Google Scholar
Washington, D. S. & Naremore, R. C. (1978). Children's use of spatial prepositions in two- and three-dimensional tasks. JSHR 21. 151–65.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wilcox, S. & Palermo, D. (1975). ‘In’, ‘on’, and ‘under’ revisited. Cognition 3. 245–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilcox, S. (1982). Children's use of lexical and non-lexical information in responding to commands. JChLang 9. 139–50.Google ScholarPubMed
Windmiller, M. (1974). The relationship between a child's conception of space and his comprehension and production of spatial locatives. In Lubin, G., Magary, J. & Poulsen, M. (eds), Piagetian theory and the helping professions. Los Angeles: University of Southern California Press.Google Scholar