Related Experiment Videos
Pronoun reversals: who, when, and why?
1Department of Psychology, University of Washington, Seattle 98195.
Journal of Child Language
|October 1, 1993
Summary
Many precocious toddlers exhibit pronoun reversals, like saying "I" for "you." This language acquisition behavior may stem from processing demands and a willingness to take risks during development.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Linguistics
- Child Language Acquisition
Background:
- Pronoun reversals (e.g., "I"/"you") are observed in early child language.
- Previous hypotheses suggested cognitive and linguistic differences explain this phenomenon.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate cognitive, linguistic, and contextual factors influencing pronoun reversals in precocious talkers.
- To examine the role of processing complexity in pronoun reversal.
Main Methods:
- Observational study of 30 precocious toddlers (aged 1;8) during unstructured play.
- Analysis of pronoun usage, focusing on "I"/"you" reversals.
- Comparison of "reversers" and "non-reversers" based on linguistic and contextual factors.
Main Results:
- 17 out of 30 precocious toddlers produced pronoun reversals.
- Reversals were more frequent with semantically reversible predicates and in imitations.
- Few differences existed between reversers and non-reversers, except higher second-person form use by reversers.
- Non-reversers tended to avoid pronoun use, particularly second-person forms.
Conclusions:
- Pronoun reversals may result from a failure to perform a deictic shift, exacerbated by processing load.
- This behavior might indicate a "risk-taking" approach to language acquisition, common in precocious children.