ERIC Number: EJ1177293
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2018-May
Pages: 31
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0305-0009
EISSN: N/A
Children's Comprehension of Contrastive Connectives
Spenader, Jennifer
Journal of Child Language, v45 n3 p610-640 May 2018
Production studies show connective acquisition by age 3;0, but comprehension studies show errors until 9;0 or older. To further investigate this gap, two comprehension tasks were carried out with 78 Dutch children between the ages of 7;0 and 10;1, testing contrastive "maar" 'but' and causal "want" 'because' connectives for comparison. An existing context choice task and a task that tested children's ability to interpret pronouns dependent on the connective were used. Children did well on the context choice task for "want" 'because', but performed far below chance with "maar" 'but'. In the pronoun interpretation task the youngest children performed at or near chance with both connectives, but show gradual improvement with age. Task complexity may partially explain the results but in general, they are consistent with previous experiments showing contrastive connective comprehension is acquired very late compared to their correct production. Further, the pronoun interpretation task may give a more accurate picture of understanding.
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Indo European Languages, Contrastive Linguistics, Children, Age Differences, Comprehension, Form Classes (Languages), Communication Skills, Language Skills, Elementary School Students, Adults, Sentences, Inferences
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Elementary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Netherlands
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A