Cognitive Stage Differences in Types of Speaker Uncertainty Markers

Abstract

The relationship between cognitive stage and three types of linguistic markers used to convey speaker uncertainty was assessed. Cognitive stage was assessed on the basis of explanations given by 56 subjects on two Piagetian probability tasks. These cognitive interviews also provided context-appropriate verbal data on the production of uncertainty markers, classified referentially as (a) frequency, (b) psychological, and (c) ambiguous. Production of frequency markers was not related to cognitive stage. However, both concrete and formal operational subjects produced more ambiguous markers than preoperational subjects, and formal operational subjects produced more psychological uncertainty markers than concrete and preoperational subjects. The results are discussed in terms of Piaget's hypothesized relationship between language and thought.