Abstract
The purpose of this research was to study the temporal and spatial systems of child language. Configurational time/space refers to the location of events/objects relative to referent events/objects (e.g., before/after or across/along) and conventional time/space refers to the specification of cycles/directions and the measurement of duration/distance (e.g., winter/fall or North/South). The research was designed to determine how configurational and conventional notions of time and space emerge in the child's language. The average age of the children in the cross-sectional design was: 3;9, 6;7, and 8;7. The children received a comprehension test that required them to match a sentence with a picture. In general, configurational contrasts were easier to comprehend than conventional contrasts, and, within the configurational problems, location requiring a single referent was easier than location requiring multiple referents. There was no overall difference between temporal and spatial dimensions. The role of conceptual development was discussed within the context of a comparison between first and second language acquisition.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
REFERENCES
Ames, L. B. (1946). The development of the sense of time in the young child. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 68, 97–125.
Becker, A., & Carroll, M. (1997). The acquisition of spatial relations in second language, Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Bowerman, M. (1981). Notes for the Nijmegen workshop. MPI, Nijmegem, Netherlands.
Bowerman, M. (1996). The origins of children's spatial semantic categories: Cognitive versus linguistic determinants. In J. J. Gumperz & S. C. Levinson (Eds.) Rethinking linguistic relativity (pp. 145–176). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Brown, P. (2001). Learning to talk about motion UP and DOWN in Tzeltal: Is there a language specific bias for verb learning? In M. Bowerman & S. C. Levinson (Eds.), Language acquisition and conceptual development (pp. 512–543). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. (1993). “Uphill” and “downhill” in Tzeltal. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 3, 46–74.
Clark, H. H. (1973). Space, time, semantics and the child. In T. E. Moore (Ed.), Cognitive development and the acquisition of language (pp. 27–63). New York: Academic Press.
Comrie, B. (1985). Tense, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dietrich, R., Klein, W., & Noyau, C. (1995). The acquisition of temporality in a second language. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Downs, R. M., & Liben, L. S. (1997). Piagetian pessimism and the mapping abilities of young children. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 87, 168–177.
Friedman, W. J. (1978). Development of the time concept in children. In H. W. Ruse & L. P. Lipsitt (Eds.), Advances in child development and behavior, Vol. 12 (pp. 267–289). New York: Academic Press.
Friedman, W. J. (1982). Conventional time concepts and the children's structuring of time. In W. J. Friedman (Ed.), The developmental psychology of time (pp. 171–208). New York: Academic Press.
Griffin S., Case R., & Sandieson, R. (1991). Synchrony and asynchrony in the acquisition of children's everyday mathematical knowledge. In R. Case (Ed.), The mind's staircase (pp. 75–98). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Harner, L. (1982). Talking about the past and the future. In W. J. Friedman (Ed.), The developmental psychology of time (pp. 141–170). New York: Academic Press.
Herskovits, A. (1998). Schematization. In P. Oliver & K. Gapp (Eds.), Representation and processing of spatial expressions (pp. 149–162). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Johnston, J. R. (1988). Children's verbal representation of spatial location. In J. Stiles-Davies, M. Kritchevsky, & U. Bellugi (Eds.), Spatial cognition (pp. 195–205) Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Kuczaj, S., & Maratsos, M. (1975). On the acquisition of front, back, and side. Child Development, 46, 202–210.
Levinson, S. C. (1996). Frames of reference and Molyneux's question: Crosslinguistic evidence. In P. Bloom, M. A. Peterson, L. Nadel, & M. F. Garrett (Eds.), Language and space (pp. 109–170) Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Liben, L. S., Moore, M. L., & Golbeck, S. L. (1982). Preschooler's knowledge of their classroom environment: Evidence from small-scale and life-size spatial tasks. Child Development, 53, 1275–1284.
Siegler, R. S., & McGilly, K. (1989). Strategy choices in children's time-telling. In I. Levin & D. Zakay (Eds.), Time and human cognition (pp. 185–218). Amsterdam: North-Holland.
Slobin, D. I. (1985). Crosslinguistic evidence for language making capacity. In D. I. Slobin (Ed.), The crosslinguistic study of language acquisition, Vol. 2 (pp. 1157–1249). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Talmy, L. (1983). How language structures space. In H. Pick & L. Acredolo (Eds.), Spatial orientation (pp. 225–282) New York: Plenum.
Toivainen, J. (1980). Inflectional affixes used by Finnish-speaking children aged 1-3 years. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura.
Weist, R. M. (1986). Tense and aspect. In P. Fletcher & M. Garman (Eds.) Language acquisition (pp. 356–374). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Weist, R. M. (1989). Time concepts in language and thought: filling the Piagetian void from two to five years. In I. Levin & D. Zakay (Eds.), Time and human cognition (pp. 63–118). Amsterdam: North-Holland.
Weist, R. M. (in press a). The first language acquisition of tense and aspect: A review. In R. Salaberry & Y. Shirai (Eds.), Tense-aspect morphology in L2 acquisition. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Weist, R. M. (in press b). Space and time in first and second language acquisition: A tribute to Henning Wode. In P. Burmeister, T. Piske, & A. Rhode (Eds.), An integrated view of language development: Papers in honor of Henning Wode. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier
Weist, R. M. Atanassova, M., Wysocka, H., & Pawlak, A. (1999). Spatial and temporal systems in child language and thought: A cross-linguistic study. First Language, 19, 267–312.
Weist, R. M., & Buczowska, E. (1987). The emergence of temporal adverbs in child Polish, First Language, 7, 217–229.
Weist, R. M., Lymburner, N. L., Piotrowski, S., & Stoddard, J. L. (2000). Spatial complexity in children's language. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 91, 425–434.
Weist, R. M., & Lyytinen, P. (1991). The development of spatial location in Finnish. International Journal of Psychology, 26, 345–356.
Weist, R. M., Lyytinen, P., Wysocka, J., & Atanassova, M. (1997). The interaction of language and thought in children's language acquisition: a cross-linguistic study. Journal of Child Language, 24, 81–121.
Weist, R. M., Wysocka, H., & Lyytinen, P. (1991). Cross-linguistic perspective on the development of temporal systems. Journal of Child Language, 18, 67–92.