An Alternative to Mapping a Word onto a Concept in Language Acquisition: Pragmatic Frames

Abstract

The classic mapping metaphor posits that children learn a word by mapping it onto a concept of an object or event. However, we believe that a mapping metaphor cannot account for word learning, because even though children focus attention on objects, they do not necessarily remember the connection between the word and the referent unless it is framed pragmatically, that is, within a task. Our theoretical paper proposes an alternative mechanism for word learning. Our main premise is that word learning occurs as children accomplish a goal in cooperation with a partner. We follow Bruner's (1983) idea and further specify pragmatic frames as the learning units that drive language acquisition and cognitive development. These units consist of a sequence of actions and verbal behaviors that are co-constructed with a partner to achieve a joint goal. We elaborate on this alternative, offer some initial parametrizations of the concept, and embed it in current language learning approaches.

Keywords: developmental robotics; frames; infants’ social learning; language acquisition; learning and memory; pragmatics.

FIGURE 1

Pragmatic frames involve operations on the cognitive level as well as on the pragmatic or communicative level (together, they constitute the “meaning”). On the cognitive level, we distinguish between (1) perceptual functions and (2) functions pertaining to the representational organization of knowledge. Perceptual functions include low-level processing such as segmentation and classification whereas functions pertaining to the representational organization of knowledge include instantiating a new knowledge item, retrieving or correcting an existing knowledge item. The pragmatic level includes knowledge about the interactional requirement and the pragmatic role of the participants, e.g., that a question is followed by an answer. Interactional experience (history of interaction) is the driving force for deep meaning and deep syntax as constituents of an invariant structure.