Children's Epistemic Inferences through Modal Verbs and Prosody

Autor/in	Armstrong, Meghan
Titel	Children's Epistemic Inferences through Modal Verbs and Prosody
Quelle	In: Journal of Child Language, 47 (2020) 6, S.1132-1169 (38 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	ORCID (Armstrong, Meghan)
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0305-0009
DOI	10.1017/S0305000919000916
Schlagwörter	Young Children; Inferences; Suprasegmentals; Epistemology; Learning Modalities; Age Differences; Performance; Metalinguistics + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Frühe Kindheit; Inference; Inferenz; Erkenntnistheorie; Lernumgebung; Age; Difference; Age difference; Altersunterschied; Achievement; Leistung; Metalanguage; Metasprache
Abstract	This study explores how young children infer nuances in epistemic modality through prosody. A forced-choice task was used, testing children's (ages three to seven) comprehension of the "might"/"will" distinction (modal condition) as well their ability to modulate the strength of "might" through two prosodic tunes (prosody condition). Positive and negative valence conditions were included. Younger children were shown to start off performing above chance for the modal condition, and at around chance for the prosody condition, but after age four performance on the prosody condition quickly improved. For both modal verbs and prosody, children performed significantly better when valence was positive. By age seven, children performed at ceiling for all conditions. Qualitative analysis of children's justifications for prosody responses showed metalinguistic awareness of prosodic meaning as early as age four, with the ability to relate prosody to epistemic modal meaning becoming quite common by age seven. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01