The ontogenesis of meaning: An interactional approach (original) (raw)
Related papers
Infant and Child Development, 2014
In this study, we address the construction of the first symbolic uses of objects in contexts of triadic interaction (adult-child-object). We assume that symbolic productions are based on public rules of the use of objects previously agreed by the community. The first symbols are not rooted in any literal, evident reality, but in shared rules of uses about the material world. We observed six dyads communicating and interacting together with 10 objects in a semi-structured situation longitudinally from 9 to 15 months of age. We found that the infants gradually constructed symbolic meanings, and we identified five symbolic levels and sublevels. At 9 months, the infants attended and engaged in the symbolic uses produced by an adult even though they themselves were not yet able to produce them. At 12 months, infants began to use objects symbolically to communicate with adults. The highest percentage of these first symbolic uses was of level 1, that is, with a close relation to the conventional use of the object used to perform the symbol. At 15 months, children increased their symbolic uses and performed symbolic uses at all levels, whereas adults reduced such practices. Adult semiotic mediation and the social meanings of objects can be considered important factors in children's symbolic productions.
Communicative Mediation by Adults in the Construction of Symbolic Uses by Infants
Integrative psychological & behavioral science, 2018
Adult semiotic mediation in the origin and evolution of the first symbolic uses of objects by infants in contexts of triadic interactions was investigated. Six infant-parent dyads interacting together with ten objects were observed longitudinally from 9 to 15 months of age, with an interval of three months between each observation. The communicative mediators used by adults, in the form of demonstrations and ostensive gestures, decrease as infants grow up. The orchestration of these semiotic mediators also decreases and the functions of the demonstrations change. At the beginning, the adults use them merely to demonstrate the symbolic uses of object, but later they use them to evaluate, complete or correct the symbolic uses by the infants. The semiotic mediators are first used to guide the child at the level of attention and later at the level of cultural practices of symbolic uses of objects. These changes in communicative mediators and their functions reveal the educational role o...
B ates and colleagues' influential model of the emer gence of intentional communication in infancy sug gests that infants' first gestures instrumentalize the other in order to obtain a desired goal Bates, Benigni, Bretherton, Camaioni & Volterra, 1979). Relying on Piaget's concept of mean end differentia tion, Bates et al. argued that intentional communication in infancy functions as a social tool use, in analogy to tool use that represents a major psychological achievement in the preverbal stage Bates et al., 1979). In this article, we claim that apprehending intentional communication uniquely from an instrumental perspec tive does not allow accessing the cognitive processing required for successful communication. Relying on an inferential model of communication (e. g. , we support that communication involves accessing the other's communicative intention in order to determine the meaning of his or her communicative acts. We use Clark's concept of 'common ground ' (1996) in order to account for the process that allows protagonists to access their respective communicative intentions. Common ground being the pool of meanings and experience shared between protagonists, they become able to rely on such shared knowledge in order to access each other's communicative intentions and thus reach successful communication. In quest of a model which accounts for the role of shared meanings in early psychological functioning, we addressed the cul tural historical theory by Vygotsky and particularly the key concept of semiotic mediation of the psyche (Vygotsky, 1935(Vygotsky, /1987. However, as it will be further developed, Vygotsky did not apprehend the preverbal development as semiotically mediated. It is in the approach of Object Pragmatics (Moro & Rodriguez, 2005) -relying and extending Vygotsky's hypotheses -that we found a theoretical account of how meaning is being constructed and shared in the pre verbal stage. This approach and its key concept of 'con ventional use of objects' represent the theoretical frame work underlying the semiotic perspective on intention al communication in infancy that we suggest in this arti cle. Our argumentation in favor of such an approach is illustrated by two short examples of gestures produced respectively by a 12 and a 16 months old child in order to communicate intentionally to an adult.
Object Pragmatics: Culture and Communication – the Bases for Early Cognitive Development
The Cambridge Handbook of Sociocultural Psychology
The idea of objects having social status is gaining momentum in the Sociocultural Paradigm. To assert that children "explore" or "play with" objects is imprecise and absolutely banal. Children use objects and instruments in everyday life according to different degrees of complexity: noncanonical, rhythmic-sonorous, proto-canonical, canonical or functional, symbolic, meta-canonical, uses with a self-regulatory function, and numerical uses. Their development during the first years of life is spectacular. Their presence, as a cascade, follows a developmental "ordered" path. When children use objects canonically, it is because they have acquired a type of functional permanence, shared with the community. This functional permanence has a pivotal status and may be a pragmatic link in the origin of concepts. Adults play an important role in this cultural development, as objects are often part of communicative-educative acts since the beginning. noncanonical uses, to acquire the cultural uses of the community. Object and use do not coincide. One thing is the object and another is the use of it. Because children are not born knowing the functions of objects (as evidenced by how they use them), these functions have to be learned. Here, the adult guide the educational action-done by parents and teachers, for instance-, intervenes through different semiotic systems (language, gestures, intonation, rhythm, uses of objects, and so on). This idea is in tune with one of the most deeply rooted sociocultural maxims: the child does not discover meaning or signifies the world on his/her own. It is evident that to "learn to write, add or use a map, help is needed from other more competent persons who know how to interpret writing, numbers and maps" (Martí, 2003, p. 21). Schooling and educational intervention provide the necessary guidance (Vergnaud, 2013; Saada-Robert, 2012). There is no reason not to apply these maxims to babies, who are in greatest need of the presence of others. The observation unit to understand the emergence of meaning-making is adult-child-object triadic (educational) interaction, which occurs right from the beginning of life. The popular idea that triadic interaction begins at the end of the first year, when children can communicate intentionally with others (Tomasello, 2014), is therefore subject to question. Before then, someone has communicated intentionally with children, providing them significant clues to functionally understand the world. Adults offer their intentions by involving children in their own action (Rodríguez, 2006) while cleaning, caring, feeding or interacting freely (Rodríguez, Benassi, et al., in press). Indeed, adults promote the first triadic interactions in the most diverse scenarios and children take part in them long before they know it. During these early triadic interactions, adults communicate with and about objects. Language alone does not suffice to generate shared meaning because it is too complex. Objects are not mere external referents, but instruments for communication (see Fig. 1) that children understand and use before they can speak. In the first edition of this Handbook, Rodríguez (2007) referred to Bruner's (1975) pragmatics of speech position, opposing Chomsky's formalism and claiming that children learn to
Video capture of symbolic activity in toddler initiated play
This article is backgrounded by researchers using of visual methodology for naturalistic research to document young children's learning. Recent interest in the speed and immediacy of mobile phone video capture leads to new opportunities in educational research. This small study aims to find if mobile phone video is an appropriate research tool for the capture of fleeting moments of learning, in toddler initiated play. Inspired by participation in an ethically approved pilot project: 'Studying Babies and Toddlers: Cultural Worlds and Transitory Relationships', the study uses a cultural-historical Theoretical approach to analyse mobile phone video data of one toddler's pontaneous play activity. It is argued that greater attention be paid by educators to transitory moments of toddler play in relation to their pedagogical significance. A fortuitous moment of toddler initiated symbolic play activity is video captured on mobile phone and used for discussion. Drawing on Vygotsky's concepts of the social genesis of higher mental functions and perezhivanie, the toddler's initiated symbolic play activity is analysed. Analysis is supported by visual methodology, where video image data are linked with transcript to create a narrative of the moment of toddler's initated play. Data are found to exemplify the ontogenesis of higher mental functions being culturally mediated and supported in the toddler's symbolic play activity. Futhermore, findings show how tactile and visual qualities of a cultural object attract a toddler's sensory responses, which in turn, activate the creative moment of symbolic play. The toddler's momentary playful action captured on mobile phone video, sheds light on how symbolic activity reflects thinking processes to offer insight into how toddler (Luci) can, in a passing moment, imbue a cultural object with new symbolic meaning. Findings imply that using mobile phone video for later review, makes it possible for educators to pay more immediate attention to toddler's activity in frequently overlooked transitory moments of play. Potentially, the ubiquitous mobile phone can help educators discover the pedagogical significance of a toddler's smallest moment of symbolic activity, and in practice, offer ethical and caring extension to support their learning.
The cradle of language: making sense of bodily connexions
2007
her mother, it is enough that, when together, she responds to the effects of parental alertness (1995: 198). Chimpanzees play similar proto-language games when, for example, they present a bodily area to be groomed. This constitutes a generalizable request akin to a child's special wiggle that shows she wants to get out of her chair (1993: 174). Although humans and chimps invent similar 'projects', their lives soon diverge. For Canfield, humans alone rely on stylization (1995: 202) as a basis for conventional or prelinguistic gestures (e.g. pointing). Later, drawing on animal nature, they extend these actions to verbal signs. With verbalization, a child becomes a cultural creature. Without leaving a framework of interaction and gesture, she employs words "from a common vocabulary" (1993: 177). "One fine day", Wittgenstein (RPP II: 171) notes, she steps into language. Around their first birthday, children use words to make requests. For Canfield, it is 'brute fact' that we make, comply with, and describe wants (1993: 178). Resembling as it does the gestural expression of pre-linguistic games, there is no deep puzzle about this new word-language. The indeterminacy of translation is a non-issue because, in time, one way of acting replaces another. Looking across cultures, Canfield (1993) provides a tentative classification of language games into types: 1a) making requests; 1b) responding to requests; 2a) making intention-utterances; 2b) responding to intention utterances; 3a) uttering prohibitions; 3b) responding to prohibitions; 4) greeting; and 5) mere naming. By the end of the second year, though, cultures and groups diverge. For example, in one setting a child proceeds by saying things like 'Climbing chair' or 'Duck, frog downstairs'. Early intention-utterances begin to morph into announcements of plans and, then, branch around words like 'then' (e.g. 'Jump first, then shirt'). In later months, verbal fillings allow forward projection of action (e.g. 'eat later'), decision making ('I'll be there at 3 o'clock') and, eventually, promising ('I will be there at 3 o'clock'). An anthropological perspective brings much of value to conceptualizing how language influences development. By stressing that talk is fundamental in shaping how they act, Canfield shows that, early on, infants do not learn language. Accepting Wittgenstein's view that language is an extension of action (1976: 740), he takes the view that children-not brains-learn to participate in talk. In this way, he avoids many discussions that bedevil linguistics. His approach sidesteps debates between rationalists and empiricists as well as arguments about which aspects of wordlanguage are 'learned' outside-in and which grow inside-out. Emphasis on how children find a way into talk makes it necessary to posit neither that brains are general learning-mechanisms nor that they run language-ready programs. 2 What matters, then, is how a baby comes to use utterances to act, understand and mean. Anthropological distance makes the model simple. Above all, it distinguishes the 'natural processes' of the first months from the natural-cultural events that are made possible by conventions. With the rise of hybrid processes at the end of first year, the infant's activity meshes with word-language. So far, so good. Not only does this fit current views of human development but it provides rich description of how children use 'universal language customs'. However, given his reliance on diary records of Z's doings, Canfield is bound to emphasize speech and the speaker. Developmental effects are conflated with evolved biases and, given his method, understanding falls out of the picture. In emphasizing that children share adult perspectives, he underplays both the non-conventional ('Everything has a shadow except ants') and the particularity of dialogue. This happens, above all, because examining how speech can be described requires him to emphasise what is universal. The diary method also requires Canfield to play down the adult's role and, by
The Significance of the Emergence of Language and Symbol in the Development of the Young Infant
In this paper I have suggested that the mother–child dyad is the foundation for integrity between the psychic self and the physical self, and the capacity of these to relate to the external environment. I have also argued that the development of language and symbol are creative agents in the development of consciousness in the young infant, and that the emergence of language and symbol are an expression of the opening of a potential space which allows differentiation from the mother and facilitates the infant's ability to distinguish fantasy from fact and self from other.
Gifts and Infant Games: Implications for Epistemology
Philosophy Study, 2017
Independent Researcher Giving/receiving is a basic frame for communication and cognition (Vaughan 2015). Recent research shows that we are born with active intersubjective minds and that we unconsciously or pre-consciously select pertinent perceptions from a background of many others. Researchers on salience, tell us that things seem to "pop out" from a background, calling our attention to them. Adults play games with babies, smiling, nodding, saying "boo," playing peep-eye. They "pop out" from the background, as gifts coming forward to be perceived as relevant. These games provide practice in recognizing salient events. They are prototypes for later games like throwing and catching balls, which repeat the early schema of give-and-receive.