Children's understanding of the opaque and transparent uses of language

grantor: University of TorontoA developmental study of children's sensitivity to opaque contexts is reported. Sentences are considered opaque if the substitution of a term with a co-referential term can change the truth of the sentence (e.g., "John thinks that Venus is the Morning Stay"). Opaque contexts often involve propositional attitude verbs such as 'know' and 'think'. Sensitivity to opacity requires understanding that a referent can be represented in different ways, and that the specific description that is used is important. Two studies were conducted investigating children's ability to deal with opacity. In the first, 4- to 8-year-olds were given a variety of opacity tasks (referential, linguistic and intentional), false belief tasks, digit span, and vocabulary measures. The results of the first study indicated that children were more successful on opaque contexts with action referents than those with object referents. The results also demonstrated that children find referential opacity easier than linguistic opacity, and both easier than intentional opacity. Nonetheless, performance across the three types of opacity was related even when age, vocabulary and digit span were statistically controlled, supporting the view that there is an underlying commonality for the three contexts. The second study examined whether performance on referentially opaque contexts could be predicted by metarepresentational ability and metalinguistic awareness. Metarepresentational ability was measured using false belief tasks and metalinguistic ability was measured using tasks requiring children to compare and evaluate statements containing referring expressions. In this second study, 5- to 7-year-olds were given opacity (referential and quotational), false belief, metalinguistic awareness, digit span, and vocabulary measures. Hierarchical regressions indicated that even after the variability from children's age, vocabulary scores and digit span performance is taken into account, metarepresentational ability and metalinguistic awareness still significantly, and independently, explained some of the remaining variability in performance on referential opacity tasks. These results are taken as support for the view that both metarepresentational ability and metalinguistic awareness are necessary in order to deal with referentially opaque contexts. These studies are of interest to anyone concerned with: (1) children's understanding of the representational nature of language; and (2) the necessary abilities for sensitivity to opaque contexts.Ph.D