Article published In: Linguistics in the Netherlands 2019
Edited by Janine Berns and Elena Tribushinina
[Linguistics in the Netherlands 36] 2019
► pp. 83–98
Part II: Selected papers presented at the Dutch Annual Linguistics Day
of 2019
Does reported speech influence listeners’ choice of perspective in the interpretation of spatial prepositions?
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.
For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.
Published online: 5 November 2019
https://doi.org/10.1075/avt.00025.bon
https://doi.org/10.1075/avt.00025.bon
Abstract
Linguistic cues can encourage adults to adopt an other-centric
rather than an egocentric perspective. This study investigated whether the
presence of direct speech compared to indirect speech influences listeners’
choice of perspective when interpreting the Dutch spatial prepositions
voor ‘in front of’ and achter ‘behind’.
Dutch adults and 10 to 12-year-old children were tested in a sentence-picture
verification task. Contrary to expectations, we found no difference between
direct and indirect speech (Study 1), nor did we find a difference between
reported and non-reported speech (Study 2). Most adult listeners adopted the
contrasting perspective of the speaker, irrespective of how the information
about the reported speech was expressed. We did find a difference between adults
and children: children adopted the other person’s perspective less often than
adults did. Overall, the results suggest that the mere presence of a reported
speaker already is a cue for taking this speaker’s perspective.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 1.1Different spatial perspectives
- 1.2Shifting between an egocentric and an other-centric perspective
- 1.3Linguistic cues in perspective taking
- Study 1
- 2.Method
- 2.1Participants
- 2.2Materials and design
- 2.3Procedure
- 3.Results
- 4.Discussion of Study 1
- 4.1Direct versus indirect speech
- 4.2Children versus adults
- 4.3Comparison with previous studies
- 2.Method
- Study 2
- 5.Method
- 5.1Participants
- 5.2Materials and design
- 5.3Procedure
- 6.Results
- 7.General discussion
- 5.Method
References
References (13)
Bullens, Jessie, Nina Lienenkämper, Frank Wijnen & Albert Postma. 2013. “Children’s use of spatial reference frames in verbal and
non-verbal tasks.” Language and Action in Cognitive Neuroscience ed. by Y. Coello & A. Bartolo, 177–190. Hove, East Sussex: Psychology Press.
Duran, Nicholas D., Rick Dale & Roger J. Kreuz. 2011. “Listeners invest in an assumed other’s perspective despite
cognitive cost.” Cognition 121:1. 22–40.
Epley, Nicholas, Carey K. Morewedge & Boaz Keysar. 2004. “Perspective taking in children and adults: Equivalent egocentrism
but differential correction.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 40:6.760–768.
Flavell, John H., Eleanor F. Flavell, Frances L. Green & Sharon A. Wilcox. 1980. “Young children’s knowledge about visual perception: effect of
observer’s distance from target on perceptual clarity of
target.” Developmental Psychology 16:1.10–12.
Hukker, Vera & Petra Hendriks. 2017. “Whose side are they on? Children’s interpretation of
perspective-dependent prepositions.” Linguistics in the Netherlands ed. by S. Lestrade & B. Le Bruyn, 63–76. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Keysar, Boaz, Dale T. Barr, Jennifer A. Balin & Jason S. Brauner. 2000. “Taking perspective in conversation: The role of mutual knowledge
in comprehension.” Psychological Science 11:1.32–38.
Köder, Franziska, Emar Maier & Petra Hendriks. 2015. “Perspective shift increases processing effort of pronouns: a
comparison between direct and indirect speech.” Language, Cognition and Neuroscience 30:8.940–946.
Levinson, Stephen C. 1996. “Frames of reference and Molyneux’s question: Crosslinguistic
evidence.” Language and Space ed. by P. Bloom & M. Peterson, 109–169. Cambridge, MA: MIT press.
2003. Space in Language and Cognition: Explorations in Cognitive
Diversity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Psychology Software Tools, Inc. [E-Prime 2.0]. 2012. [URL]
Taylor, Holly A. & David N. Rapp. 2004. “Where is the donut? Factors influencing spatial reference frame
use.” Cognitive Processing 5:3. 175–188.