Bilingual children display comparative strength using prosodic cues for pragmatic word learning

Aims/objectives/research questions:: Previous studies indicate differences in the way children who grow up with two languages use socio-pragmatic cues to help them identify referents and learn new words, yet the nature of these differences (executive control, better attention to social cues, or pragmatic reasoning) has not been investigated. Design/methodology/approach:: This study examined 270 monolingual and bilingually exposed 4–6-year-old children’s performance in 2 tasks using different prosodic cues (contrastive stress and emotional affect) for fast mapping. It avoids a design where children have to inhibit an irrelevant cue, which would enhance the role of differences in executive control. Data/analysis:: We performed statistical analyses using a logistic regression mixed model. Findings/conclusions:: The bilingually exposed group performed lower than monolinguals in a control condition involving structural language (0.83 vs. 0.92). However, they performed on par with monolinguals in a pragmatic condition when considering only semantically correct answers in both groups (0.55 vs. 0.58), and even displayed significant comparative strength in the task once control performance and demographic variables were taken into account. This effect appeared when the task required reasoning about the speaker’s communicative intentions (contrastive stress) but not when children merely had to recognise a communicative cue (emotional affect). Originality:: No study has so far investigated the socio-pragmatic abilities of bilingual children using a task that did not require inhibiting an irrelevant cue. Implications:: These findings have implications for bilingual education and a better understanding of the impact of being educated in two languages. We also draw attention to implications regarding the existence of different types of pragmatic skills which may have differing developmental timelines and rely on different sets of abilities

No one-to-one mapping between typologies of pragmatic relations and models of pragmatic processing: a case study with mentalizing

In this article, we argue that the growth of research in cognitively and experimentally oriented pragmatics in the last two decades has rested on two epistemological assumptions: that theoretical-pragmatic notions such as ‘implicature’, ‘metaphor’ and ‘irony’ correspond to distinct types of pragmatic inferences, and that each theoretical-pragmatic characterization of a certain type of inference corresponds to one and only one cognitive model of processing in the mind. We review the foundations of these assumptions and we problematize them based on (i) a conceptual argument that notions such as ‘implicature’ and ‘irony’ are originally meant as relations between propositions rather than types of inferences, and (ii) on recent experimental evidence which suggests that whether mentalizing is employed in pragmatic processing or not is not a function of the type of pragmatic relation, but rather it depends on situation-specific considerations and characteristics of the interlocutor, such as age and neurotype. These considerations call for a new understanding of the role of experimental evidence in the evaluation of pragmatic theories. This article is part of the theme issue ‘At the heart of human communication: new views on the complex relationship between pragmatics and Theory of Mind’

Investigating a shared mechanism in the priming of manner and quantity implicature

In the current paper, we investigate the existence of a shared derivation mechanism between manner and quantity implicature. As per the Gricean-inspired perspective, both manner and quantity implicature are derived in a substantially analogous fashion, relying on the consideration of alternative ways in which the speaker could have spoken, but didn’t. In contrast, other accounts (e.g., grammatical accounts) of quantity implicature consider manner implicature and quantity implicature to be distinct in their derivational mechanisms.Previous studies have found that quantity implicature can prime the derivation of subsequent quantity implicature both within and between quantity implicature subtypes in a structural priming paradigm, suggesting that ad hoc, numeral and some quantity implicature are governed by the same derivational mechanism. We have applied a structural priming paradigm to the case of manner implicature to investigate 1) whether manner implicature can be primed, 2) whether manner implicature can prime manner implicature and 3) whether manner implicature can be primed by quantity implicature. Through manner-manner priming, the paper addresses the psycholinguistic reality of manner. While quantity-manner priming probes the existence of a shared derivational mechanism between the phenomena.We show that manner implicature can prime manner implicature under certain experimental circumstances and that ad hoc quantity, but not some quantity implicature can also prime manner implicature, whereas some quantity implicature cannot

A Distinction Between Linguistic and Social Pragmatics Helps the Precise Characterization of Pragmatic Challenges in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders and Developmental Language Disorder.

Purpose Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) and children with developmental language disorder (DLD) face challenges with pragmatics, but the nature and sources of these difficulties are not fully understood yet. The purpose of this study was to compare the competence of children with ASD and children with DLD in two pragmatics tasks that place different demands on theory of mind (ToM) and structural language. Method Twenty Spanish-speaking children with ASD, 20 with DLD, and 40 age- and language-matched children with neurotypical development were assessed using two pragmatics tasks: a linguistic pragmatics task, which requires competence with structural language, and a social pragmatics task, which requires competence with ToM as well. Results For linguistic pragmatics, the ASD group performed similarly to the DLD and language-matched groups, and performance was predicted by structural language. For social pragmatics, the ASD group performed lower than the DLD and language-matched groups, and performance was predicted both by structural language and ToM. Conclusions Children with ASD and children with DLD face difficulties in linguistic pragmatics tasks, in keeping with their structural language. Children with ASD face exceptional difficulties with social pragmatics tasks, due to their difficulties with ToM. The distinction between linguistic and social pragmatic competences can inform assessment and intervention for pragmatic difficulties in different populations.British Academy Project (SG-47135

Recognising and Protecting the Communication Rights of Autistic Children

•Autistic children are at risk of having their communication rights violated. This risk is heightened for autistic children with communication disability, which can emerge from factors inherent autism, co-occurring language disorders and societal barriers. This risk is also unacceptably high for autistic children from minority groups. • The autistic community, researchers, clinicians and policymakers must work together to promote the communication rights of all autistic children. In particular, Speech and Language Therapists (SLTs) can contribute valuable expertise to the development and implementation of impactful policies in this field. • We propose three areas of policy action to better protect the communication rights of autistic children: o Area 1: Promoting more Inclusive Communication practices in our society; o Area 2: Enabling the co-creation of communication support services with autistic children and other relevant stakeholders; o Area 3: Increasing the visibility, access and inclusivity of specialist services

Backgrounding and accomodation of presuppositions: an experimental approach

Recent research on presupposition has aimed to use techniques of experimental semantics and pragmatics to cast light on the processes that underlie projection and information packaging. Relatively little attention has so far been paid to the relation between the diversity of presuppositions with respect to information packaging and their projection behaviour. In this paper, we argue that information backgrounding and projection can be seen as closely related phenomena, and we present an experimental study investigating the behaviour of a variety of presupposition triggers. We interpret the results as evidence for the psychological reality of at least one of the theoretical distinctions between presupposition types posited in the literature (lexical versus resolution presuppositions), and consider their implications for the competing accounts of presupposition projection