Stages and transitions in children’s semiotic development

• Stage models were prevalent in developmental psychology in the past, but have recently been subjected to much criticism. We propose “rehabilitation”, defining semiotic stage as a (not necessarily stable) period characterized by the clear establishment of a novel semiotic capacity, which may “dominate” the communication of the child at this stage, but does not replace capacities from previous stages. This is spelled out by adopting one particular model of semiotic development – the Mimesis Hierarchy (Zlatev 2008a, 2008b) – and presenting comparative and developmental data from 6 children in Sweden and Thailand, between 18 and 27 months of age, analyzing their acts of bodily communication (ABCs) in relation to their emerging linguistic capacities. The results show evidence for a transition around 20 months, when children display the use of (stable) signs, shared with their community, in both the linguistic and gestural modalities, but do not yet systematically combine them. Only towards the end of the period under study does this begin to occur on a more routine basis. Implications are drawn for the continuous debate “insight” vs. gradual development in ontogeny, suggesting a compromise.

Ämnesord

HUMANIORA  -- Språk och litteratur -- Jämförande språkvetenskap och allmän lingvistik (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Languages and Literature -- General Language Studies and Linguistics (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

gesture

children

development

cognition

semiotics

Publikations- och innehållstyp

kap (ämneskategori)

vet (ämneskategori)