Chapter 5. Young children’s experience of referentiality and nonreferentiality in dialogue

Abstract

This chapter focuses on young children’s experience of referential and nonreferential uses of noun phrases (NPs) in everyday dialogues. Our study of a corpus of interactions between adults and children aged 1;10 to 2;6 showed that the indeterminacy and instability that might characterise children’s uses can also be found in adults’ discourse. Not only are (non)referential values co-constructed, but children are also not exposed to clear-cut contrasts between the uses or values of NPs. On the contrary, both in the adults’ discourse and in the way adults react to children’s utterances, they seem to experience the fact that noun phrases potentially present various facets, which can be successively or simultaneously activated in dialogue.