Temporal Cognition and Temporal Language the First and Second Times around. Commentary on McCormack and Hoerl

Autor/in	Ellis, Nick C.
Titel	Temporal Cognition and Temporal Language the First and Second Times around. Commentary on McCormack and Hoerl
Quelle	In: Language Learning, 58 (2008), S.115-121 (7 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0023-8333
DOI	10.1111/j.1467-9922.2008.00465.x
Schlagwörter	Stellungnahme; Speech Communication; Semantics; Verbs; Child Language; Adult Learning; Adult Students; English (Second Language); Language Acquisition; Time Perspective; Cognitive Processes; Language Research + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Semantik; 'Children''s language'; Kindersprache; Adulte education; Adult training; Erwachsenenbildung; Adult; Adults; Student; Students; Erwachsenenalter; Studentin; Schüler; Schülerin; English as second language; English; Second Language; Englisch als Zweitsprache; Sprachaneignung; Spracherwerb; Zeitbezug; Cognitive process; Kognitiver Prozess; Sprachforschung
Abstract	McCormack and Hoerl's state of the art review of the development of temporal concepts from the end of infancy to the end of the fifth year shows that young children's conception of time is quite different from that of adults. Adults and 5-year-old children can construe an event from a range of temporal perspectives and can describe it from a variety of reference times (RTs) that may not coincide with the time of the event itself (ET) or with the time of speaking (ST). Younger children are incapable of such temporal decentring. The developmental progression is that RT is first freed from the here-and-now of ST to permit an additional perspective from ET, and eventually it is loosed from ET too. These milestones mark the slow realization of abstract abilities of "perspective-taking," rather than "perspective-switching," and demonstrate the appreciation of systematic relationships between the different temporal perspectives possible on the same chronological event sequence. The influence of semantics on language acquisition is universal. The Aspect hypothesis is a clear case in point. Child language learners are initially influenced by the inherent semantic aspect of verbs in the acquisition of tense and aspect morphology affixed to these verbs. Thus, (perfective) past emerges earlier for telic verbs and progressive for verbs associated with dynamic atelics. One interpretation of such aspect-before-tense phenomena is that children's understanding of time in language is closely tied to their representations of time and event sequences. There are two different strategies of testing this hypothesis. One, clearly exemplified by McCormack and Hoerl, is to set up elegant assessments of children's cognition where the task demands are as language-free as possible. However, there is another strategy for determining the degree to which temporal language development is constrained by temporal understanding or, alternatively, to the relations of time and language in "thinking for speaking" about time--that is to compare first language acquisition (L1A) with second language acquisition (L2A) in adult learners who have fully developed temporal cognition. In this commentary, the author focuses on two phenomena of L2A of tense and aspect. These phenomena show the necessity for the understanding of time and language of different strands of research. The author contends that an understanding of temporal cognition informs one's understanding of the acquisition of temporality in language. However, it is mutual. Studies of L2A inform and constrain one's theories of L1A and temporal cognition too. (ERIC).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10