Referent accessibility and referential choice in Mandarin mother–child conversation: The incremental effect of accessibility

Lingua ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 103198
Author(s):  
Chiung-chih Huang
2014 ◽  
Vol 42 (5) ◽  
pp. 1146-1157 ◽  
Author(s):  
DANIEL SCHMERSE ◽  
ELENA LIEVEN ◽  
MICHAEL TOMASELLO

AbstractWe investigated whether children at the ages of two and three years understand that a speaker's use of the definite article specifies a referent that is in common ground between speaker and listener. An experimenter and a child engaged in joint actions in which the experimenter chose one of three similar objects of the same category to perform an action. In subsequent interactions children were asked to get ‘the X’ or ‘a X’. When children were instructed with the definite article they chose the shared object significantly more often than when they were instructed with the indefinite article in which case children's choice was at chance. The findings show that in their third year children use shared experiences to interpret the speaker's communicative intention underlying her referential choice. The results are discussed with respect to children's representation of linguistic categories and the role of joint action for establishing common ground.


2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (10) ◽  
pp. 1176-1177
Author(s):  
Alexander Egeberg ◽  
Lotus Mallbris ◽  
Gunnar Gislason ◽  
Lone Skov

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-95
Author(s):  
Carla Contemori ◽  
Iva Ivanova

AbstractUnder the Interface Hypothesis, bilinguals’ non-nativelike referential choices may be influenced by the increased cognitive demands and less automatic processing of bilingual production. We test this hypothesis by comparing pronoun production in the L2 of nonbalanced Spanish–English bilinguals to that of English monolinguals in two cognitively challenging contexts. In Experiment 1, both monolinguals and bilinguals produced more explicit references when part of the information was unavailable to their addressee (privileged ground) than when all information was shared (common ground), evidencing audience design. In Experiment 2, verbal load led to more unspecified references than visual load and no load (an effect statistically indistinguishable between groups but numerically driven by the monolingual group). While bilinguals produced overall more pronouns than monolinguals in both experiments, there was no indication that bilinguals’ referential choice was disproportionally affected by increased cognitive demand, contrary to the predictions of the Interface Hypothesis.


1994 ◽  
Vol 77 (4) ◽  
pp. 1597-1601 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Gao ◽  
J. Ren ◽  
E. A. Gulve ◽  
J. O. Holloszy

The maximal effects of insulin and muscle contractions on glucose transport are additive. GLUT-4 is the major glucose transporter isoform expressed in skeletal muscle. Muscle contraction and insulin each induce translocation of GLUT-4 from intracellular sites into the plasma membrane. The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that the incremental effect of contractions and insulin on glucose transport is mediated by additivity of the maximal effects of these stimuli on GLUT-4 translocation into the sarcolemma. Anesthetized rats were given insulin by intravenous infusion to raise plasma insulin to 2,635 +/- 638 microU/ml. The gastrocnemius-plantaris-soleus group was stimulated to contract via the sciatic nerve by using a protocol that maximally activates glucose transport. After treatment with insulin, contractions, or insulin plus contractions or no treatment, the gastrocnemius-plantaris-soleus muscle group was dissected out and was subjected to subcellular fractionation to separate the plasma membrane and intracellular membrane fractions. Insulin induced a 70% increase and contractions induced a 113% increase in the GLUT-4 content of the plasma membrane fraction. The effects of insulin and contractions were additive, as evidenced by a 185% increase in the GLUT-4 content of the sarcolemmal fraction. This finding provides evidence that the incremental effect of maximally effective insulin and contractile stimuli on glucose transport is mediated by additivity of their effects on GLUT-4 translocation into the sarcolemma.


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