Situated Reference in Language Acquisition: Visual and Emotional Information in L1 and L2 Language Comprehension

This project investigates how understanding referential relations in spoken language emerges through a multi-modal sensory interaction and how the ability to interpret interlocutors' intentions via different cues and joint attention develops. The main re search focus is on whether and how visual cues and prosody interact with grammatical structure and information structure in the process of deciding which participants in the situation pronouns refer to in young children acquring Norwegian. We are interest ed in how these cues direct children's attention to discourse referents within the time constraints of normal conversation in their native language between ages 3 - 7 years, and whether similar cues are available in English as a second language in slightl y older children.

Understanding referential relations is a vital prerequisite to successful communication. This understanding emerges through a multi-modal sensory interaction with the environment and rests crucially on the ability to understand cues to other people's inte ntions and joint attention, e.g., eye-gaze and emotions. As language learning is largely input driven and adult language processing is modulated by visual and emotional information, it is reasonable to predict that these factors affect learner language pr ocessing and the emerging adult system, both in L1 and L2, in very important ways. Yet, there is very little research on how children process reference and no research on how this ability develops through the interaction of their linguistic and sensory ex perience. A series of experimental studies will investigate how 3, 5, and 7-year-old Norwegian children understand reference when they begin the feat of learning English at 6; and how they process English later at ages 10 and 12. We will ask for the firs t time whether and how non-linguistic cues to joint attention, visual eye-gaze and emotional prosody, interact with grammatical cues and information structure, syntactic and prosodic marking of focus, to direct children's attention to discourse referents and to help them understand pronominal reference given the time constraints of normal conversation. The project will produce high-impact novel scientific results and contribute to a more psychologically real understanding of how children process language in the world-context. Importantly, through our cross-sectional design, we will identify factors acting as predictors of children?s performance later in language learning. Through its teacher training and education priorities, the host institution offers an ideal environment for interacting with teacher trainees and experts on a daily basis; and allowing for direct application of our results in practical teacher training.