News & Events
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Topic: Seminar 學術講座 : Professor Ann Peters on 19th November 2002 (Tuesday)
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 Posted - 11/11/2002 : 10:19:04
Ann Peters
Department of Chinese, Translation and Linguistics
Institute of Chinese Linguistics
Language Information Sciences Research Centre
Seminar
by
Professor Ann Peters
University of Hawaii
The Roots of a Child's Pronoun "Reversals" in Social Interaction
Time: 4:30 - 6:00 pm
Date: 19th November 2002 (Tuesday)
Venue: Room B4701, City University of Hong Kong
Abstract
During language acquisition a small but non-negligeable proportion of
children seem to have difficulty with the reference of first and second
person pronouns, using "I" to refer to the interlocutor and YOU to refer
to the self. The most often evoked explanation is that such a child has
concluded that pronouns work like names, i.e. that reference is fixed.
What s/he must learn is that the reference of a pronoun shifts with the
speaker.
While accounting for the phenomenon in a rather gross way, this
explanation misses some fascinating details that become apparent when one
looks at the developmental picture more closely. Using data from my own
case study of a blind pronoun-reversing boy, supplemented by data from a
sighted Swedish boy who did much the same thing on much the same
timetable, I find that pronoun reversals are not symmetrical: YOU is more
often used to refer to the self and persists longer than the use of I to
refer to the other. Moreover, it is only when one looks at the data from
the perspective of the speech acts that are being negotiated that a
plausible developmental pattern begins to emerge.
About the Speaker
Enquiries: 2788-8705
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Enquiry: LTenquiry@cityu.edu.hk
