Maya Hickmann - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Maya Hickmann

Research paper thumbnail of Les entités spatiales dans la langue : étude descriptive, formelle et expérimentale de la catégorisation

While previous linguistic and psycholinguistic research on space has mainly analyzed spatial rela... more While previous linguistic and psycholinguistic research on space has mainly analyzed spatial relations, the studies reported in this paper focus on how language distinguishes among spatial entities. Descriptive and experimental studies first propose a classification of entities, which accounts for both static and dynamic space, has some cross-linguistic validity, and underlies adults' cognitive processing. Formal and computational analyses then introduce theoretical elements aiming at modelling these categories, while fulfilling various properties of formal ontologies (generality, parsimony, coherence…). This formal framework accounts, in particular, for functional dependences among entities underlying some part-whole descriptions.

Research paper thumbnail of Landmark and route knowledge in children's spatial representation of a virtual environment

Frontiers in psychology, 2014

This study investigates the development of landmark and route knowledge in complex wayfinding sit... more This study investigates the development of landmark and route knowledge in complex wayfinding situations. It focuses on how children (aged 6, 8, and 10 years) and young adults (n = 79) indicate, recognize, and bind landmarks and directions in both verbal and visuo-spatial tasks after learning a virtual route. Performance in these tasks is also related to general verbal and visuo-spatial abilities as assessed by independent standardized tests (attention, working memory, perception of direction, production and comprehension of spatial terms, sentences and stories). The results first show that the quantity and quality of landmarks and directions produced and recognized by participants in both verbal and visuo-spatial tasks increased with age. In addition, an increase with age was observed in participants' selection of decisional landmarks (i.e., landmarks associated with a change of direction), as well as in their capacity to bind landmarks and directions. Our results support the v...

Research paper thumbnail of Encoding Motion Events in Aphasia: Cross-Linguistic Perspectives in Monolingual and Bilingual Agrammatism

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2010

Research paper thumbnail of Clause-structure variation in Chinese narrative discourse: a developmental analysis

Linguistics, 2000

Page 1. Clause-structure variation in Chinese narrative discourse: a developmental analysis*MAYA ... more Page 1. Clause-structure variation in Chinese narrative discourse: a developmental analysis*MAYA HICKMANN and JAMES LIANG Abstract ... (8) a. nei4-benl-shul tal zuo2tianl mai4-le this-Cl-book 3sg yesterday sell-ASP 'This book he sold yesterday.' b. zuo2tianl [... ...

Research paper thumbnail of Motion in first language acquisition: Manner and Path in French and English child language*

Journal of Child Language, 2009

ABSTRACTTwo experiments compared how French vs. English adults and children (three to seven years... more ABSTRACTTwo experiments compared how French vs. English adults and children (three to seven years) described motion events. Given typological properties (Talmy, 2000) and previous results (Choi & Bowerman, 1991; Hickmann, 2003; Slobin, 2003), the main prediction was that Manner should be more salient and therefore more frequently combined with Path (MP) in English than in French, particularly with four types of 'target' events, as compared to manner-oriented 'controls': motion up/down (Experiment I, N=200) and across (Experiment II, N=120), arrivals and departures (both experiments). Results showed that MP-responses (a) varied with events and increased with age in both languages, but (b) were more frequent in English at all ages with all events, and (c) were age- and event-specific among French speakers, who also frequently expressed Path or Manner alone. The discussion highlights several factors accounting for responses, with particular attention to the interplay between cognitive factors that drive language acquisition and typological properties that constrain this process from early on.

Research paper thumbnail of Epistemic modality in French children's discourse: to be sure or not to be sure?

Journal of Child Language, 1992

This study focuses on the development of epistemic modality, with particular attention to how Fre... more This study focuses on the development of epistemic modality, with particular attention to how French children evaluate the conditions of use for modal expressions marking certainty and uncertainty. Sixty children aged four, six and eight were shown films involving verbal interactions in which a target speaker accused another of having performed a deed. The analysis examine children's responses during a subsequent interview in which they were asked to attribute an epistemic attitude of certainty/uncertainty to the target speaker as a function of three factors: (a) whether he had witnessed the deed; (b) whether his accusation was modalized by the verb croire ('think/believe'); and (c) whether the accusation was true or false. The results show that the four- and six-year-olds attribute certainty more often than the eight-year-olds. This dissymmetry is accompanied by a developmental progression in children's conceptions of these modal categories, which change from a 'realistic' conception (mainly based on truth/falsity) at four years to an increasingly metalinguistic and relativized conception thereafter.

Research paper thumbnail of Learning to talk and gesture about motion in French

First Language, 2008

... express event information in speech and gesture and how the modalities interact in developmen... more ... express event information in speech and gesture and how the modalities interact in development to reflect language-specific event representations. McNeill (2005) has suggested specific developmental changes in how meanings related to voluntary motion are distributed ...

Research paper thumbnail of Pragmatics and metapragmatics in the development of epistemic modality: evidence from French children's reports of think-statements

First Language, 1993

... Pragmatics and metapragmatics in the development of epistemic modality: evidence from French ... more ... Pragmatics and metapragmatics in the development of epistemic modality: evidence from French children's ... In conclusion, children show some early sensitivity to the function of modal verbs as ... appears somewhat later than other types of modality, such as deontic modality (eg ...

Research paper thumbnail of Early locomotion and the development of spatial language: Evidence from young children with motor impairments

European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 2009

Research paper thumbnail of How language impacts memory of motion events in English and French

Cognitive Processing, 2015

This paper examines whether cross-linguistic differences in motion encoding affect event processi... more This paper examines whether cross-linguistic differences in motion encoding affect event processing, specifically memory performance. We compared speakers of two languages which differ strikingly in how they habitually encode MANNER and PATH of motion (Talmy in Toward a cognitive semantics: typology and process in concept structuring, 2nd edn, vol 2. MIT Press, Cambridge, 2000). We tested French and English adult native speakers across three tasks that recruited and/or suppressed verbal processing to different extents: verbal event descriptions elicited on the basis of dynamic motion stimuli, a verbal memory task testing the impact of prior verbalisation on target recognition, and a non-verbal memory task, using a dual-task paradigm to suppress internal verbalisation. Results showed significant group differences in the verbal description task, which mirrored expected typological tendencies. English speakers more frequently expressed both MANNER and PATH information than French speakers, who produced more descriptions encoding either PATH or MANNER alone. However, these differences in linguistic encoding did not significantly affect speakers' memory performance in the memory recognition tasks, neither in the verbal nor in the non-verbal condition. The findings contribute to current debates regarding the conditions under which language effects occur and the relative weight of language-specific and universal constraints on spatial cognition.

Research paper thumbnail of Les entités spatiales dans la langue : étude descriptive, formelle et expérimentale de la catégorisation

While previous linguistic and psycholinguistic research on space has mainly analyzed spatial rela... more While previous linguistic and psycholinguistic research on space has mainly analyzed spatial relations, the studies reported in this paper focus on how language distinguishes among spatial entities. Descriptive and experimental studies first propose a classification of entities, which accounts for both static and dynamic space, has some cross-linguistic validity, and underlies adults' cognitive processing. Formal and computational analyses then introduce theoretical elements aiming at modelling these categories, while fulfilling various properties of formal ontologies (generality, parsimony, coherence…). This formal framework accounts, in particular, for functional dependences among entities underlying some part-whole descriptions.

Research paper thumbnail of Landmark and route knowledge in children's spatial representation of a virtual environment

Frontiers in psychology, 2014

This study investigates the development of landmark and route knowledge in complex wayfinding sit... more This study investigates the development of landmark and route knowledge in complex wayfinding situations. It focuses on how children (aged 6, 8, and 10 years) and young adults (n = 79) indicate, recognize, and bind landmarks and directions in both verbal and visuo-spatial tasks after learning a virtual route. Performance in these tasks is also related to general verbal and visuo-spatial abilities as assessed by independent standardized tests (attention, working memory, perception of direction, production and comprehension of spatial terms, sentences and stories). The results first show that the quantity and quality of landmarks and directions produced and recognized by participants in both verbal and visuo-spatial tasks increased with age. In addition, an increase with age was observed in participants' selection of decisional landmarks (i.e., landmarks associated with a change of direction), as well as in their capacity to bind landmarks and directions. Our results support the v...

Research paper thumbnail of Encoding Motion Events in Aphasia: Cross-Linguistic Perspectives in Monolingual and Bilingual Agrammatism

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2010

Research paper thumbnail of Clause-structure variation in Chinese narrative discourse: a developmental analysis

Linguistics, 2000

Page 1. Clause-structure variation in Chinese narrative discourse: a developmental analysis*MAYA ... more Page 1. Clause-structure variation in Chinese narrative discourse: a developmental analysis*MAYA HICKMANN and JAMES LIANG Abstract ... (8) a. nei4-benl-shul tal zuo2tianl mai4-le this-Cl-book 3sg yesterday sell-ASP 'This book he sold yesterday.' b. zuo2tianl [... ...

Research paper thumbnail of Motion in first language acquisition: Manner and Path in French and English child language*

Journal of Child Language, 2009

ABSTRACTTwo experiments compared how French vs. English adults and children (three to seven years... more ABSTRACTTwo experiments compared how French vs. English adults and children (three to seven years) described motion events. Given typological properties (Talmy, 2000) and previous results (Choi & Bowerman, 1991; Hickmann, 2003; Slobin, 2003), the main prediction was that Manner should be more salient and therefore more frequently combined with Path (MP) in English than in French, particularly with four types of 'target' events, as compared to manner-oriented 'controls': motion up/down (Experiment I, N=200) and across (Experiment II, N=120), arrivals and departures (both experiments). Results showed that MP-responses (a) varied with events and increased with age in both languages, but (b) were more frequent in English at all ages with all events, and (c) were age- and event-specific among French speakers, who also frequently expressed Path or Manner alone. The discussion highlights several factors accounting for responses, with particular attention to the interplay between cognitive factors that drive language acquisition and typological properties that constrain this process from early on.

Research paper thumbnail of Epistemic modality in French children's discourse: to be sure or not to be sure?

Journal of Child Language, 1992

This study focuses on the development of epistemic modality, with particular attention to how Fre... more This study focuses on the development of epistemic modality, with particular attention to how French children evaluate the conditions of use for modal expressions marking certainty and uncertainty. Sixty children aged four, six and eight were shown films involving verbal interactions in which a target speaker accused another of having performed a deed. The analysis examine children's responses during a subsequent interview in which they were asked to attribute an epistemic attitude of certainty/uncertainty to the target speaker as a function of three factors: (a) whether he had witnessed the deed; (b) whether his accusation was modalized by the verb croire ('think/believe'); and (c) whether the accusation was true or false. The results show that the four- and six-year-olds attribute certainty more often than the eight-year-olds. This dissymmetry is accompanied by a developmental progression in children's conceptions of these modal categories, which change from a 'realistic' conception (mainly based on truth/falsity) at four years to an increasingly metalinguistic and relativized conception thereafter.

Research paper thumbnail of Learning to talk and gesture about motion in French

First Language, 2008

... express event information in speech and gesture and how the modalities interact in developmen... more ... express event information in speech and gesture and how the modalities interact in development to reflect language-specific event representations. McNeill (2005) has suggested specific developmental changes in how meanings related to voluntary motion are distributed ...

Research paper thumbnail of Pragmatics and metapragmatics in the development of epistemic modality: evidence from French children's reports of think-statements

First Language, 1993

... Pragmatics and metapragmatics in the development of epistemic modality: evidence from French ... more ... Pragmatics and metapragmatics in the development of epistemic modality: evidence from French children's ... In conclusion, children show some early sensitivity to the function of modal verbs as ... appears somewhat later than other types of modality, such as deontic modality (eg ...

Research paper thumbnail of Early locomotion and the development of spatial language: Evidence from young children with motor impairments

European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 2009

Research paper thumbnail of How language impacts memory of motion events in English and French

Cognitive Processing, 2015

This paper examines whether cross-linguistic differences in motion encoding affect event processi... more This paper examines whether cross-linguistic differences in motion encoding affect event processing, specifically memory performance. We compared speakers of two languages which differ strikingly in how they habitually encode MANNER and PATH of motion (Talmy in Toward a cognitive semantics: typology and process in concept structuring, 2nd edn, vol 2. MIT Press, Cambridge, 2000). We tested French and English adult native speakers across three tasks that recruited and/or suppressed verbal processing to different extents: verbal event descriptions elicited on the basis of dynamic motion stimuli, a verbal memory task testing the impact of prior verbalisation on target recognition, and a non-verbal memory task, using a dual-task paradigm to suppress internal verbalisation. Results showed significant group differences in the verbal description task, which mirrored expected typological tendencies. English speakers more frequently expressed both MANNER and PATH information than French speakers, who produced more descriptions encoding either PATH or MANNER alone. However, these differences in linguistic encoding did not significantly affect speakers' memory performance in the memory recognition tasks, neither in the verbal nor in the non-verbal condition. The findings contribute to current debates regarding the conditions under which language effects occur and the relative weight of language-specific and universal constraints on spatial cognition.