Naming the Living Things: Linguistic, Experiential and Cultural Factors in Wichí and Spanish Speaking Children

This work focuses on the underlying conceptual structure of children’s category of living things from a cross-cultural, cross-linguistic perspective. School-aged children (n = 129) from three Argentinean communities (rural Wichí-speaking, rural Spanish-speaking, urban Spanish-speaking) were asked to...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of cognition and culture
Authors: Taverna, Andrea S. (Author) ; Waxman, Sandra R. (Author) ; Medin, Douglas L. 1944- (Author)
Contributors: Moscoloni, Nora (Other) ; Peralta, Olga A. (Other)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Brill 2014
In: Journal of cognition and culture
Further subjects:B Living thing concept folkbiology semantic organization cross-culture cross-linguistic Spanish Wichí
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Summary:This work focuses on the underlying conceptual structure of children’s category of living things from a cross-cultural, cross-linguistic perspective. School-aged children (n = 129) from three Argentinean communities (rural Wichí-speaking, rural Spanish-speaking, urban Spanish-speaking) were asked to generate the names of living things. Analyses were focused on the typicality, semantic organization, and hierarchical level of the names mentioned. We identified convergences among the names generated by children in all three communities, as well as key differences: the typicality, habitats and hierarchical level of the categories mentioned varied as a function of children’s language and their direct experience with the natural world. These findings provide evidence concerning the role of language, culture and experience in shaping children’s folkbiological concepts.
ISSN:1568-5373
Contains:In: Journal of cognition and culture
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1163/15685373-12342122