Young children's understanding of the say-mean distinction in referential speech

Four experiments were conducted to investigate 6-year-old children's understanding of the say-mean distinction in referential speech. In Experiments 1 to 3, children heard stories in which a listener found an object that only approximated a speaker's description. They were subsequently asked if the object was the one the speaker had intended. When cues prominently indicated that the object was the referent, 6-year-olds often judged that it was the one that the speaker had intended. Thus, children displayed an awareness of intended meaning as distinct from message meaning. Consistent with this, 6-year-olds in Experiment 4 associated "saying X by accident" with "making a slip of the tongue." Thus, the children appeared to be aware of a factor which can result in message meaning deviating from intended meaning. However, unlike older children, 6-year-olds did not vary between literal and nonliteral interpretations of a message in accordance with information relevant to the speaker's state of memory. We conclude that young children are ineffective at utilizing others' informational states in deciding whether a literal or nonliteral message interpretation is appropriate.