Jean-Paul Bronckart

Time, tense and aspect

Abstract The present paper investigates the use of French verbal forms by children between the ages of 2,11 and 8,7. An experiment is presented demonstrating that these Ss do not only use tenses to indicate the relationship of posteriority, anteriority or simultaneity between the events described and the moment of enunciation, but that aspectual factors intervene. Seventy-four subjects were asked to describe eleven actions performed by the experimenter with toys; these actions differed in: Type of result, frequence and duration. For all subjects the type of result influences the choice of the verb forms. More objective features (frequence and duration) exert an influence between the ages of 3 and 6; after that age, the use of tenses begins to resemble adult usage in which the different verb forms are mainly employed to express temporal relationships. Other aspectual and temporal markers show a similar development with age.

S.V.O. a linguistic universal? A study in developmental psycholinguistics ☆

Abstract Sixty-eight French-speaking children between the ages of 2 years, 10 months and 7 years were asked to guess the meaning of 30 deviant three-word utterances, resembling utterances spontaneously produced by very young children. Utterances consisted of two nouns (without articles) and a verb (in the infinitive), or one noun and two verbs. Verbs were either transitive or intransitive; the two Ns plus transitive V combinations transpose into either reversible (boy pushes girl) or irreversible (boy opens box) sentences. All the three-word combinations were presented in the six possible word orders. According to age, children chose different strategies to interpret the utterances: the developmental trend was clearly towards the strategy by which the relative position of the two nouns determined the interpretation: the first noun was taken to be the subject; the second noun the object.

Les différentes facettes de l’interactionnisme socio-discursif

The author locates the socio-discursive interactionism (SDI) in relation to the multiple paradigms within the social and human sciences, demonstrating that his theory is an attempt towards the extension and development of the social interactionist project, started in the first three decades of the 20th century. His work is developed according to three objectives: a) to present the fundamental orientations in the construction of SDI, which has been the aim of his work for the past 30 years; b) to present five empirical research orientations, which have been developed from SDI; c) to evoke some new perspectives for future theoretical development. Key words: socio-discursive interactionism, research orientations, new perspectives.

The Regulating Role of Speech.

This paper reexamines some theoretical and methodological questions relative to LURIA’S concept on the regulating role of speech. Five main points are demonstrated: (1) VYGOTSKY’S stage concept lacks the functional invariants of the subject’s activity, which determine the developmental course characteristic of Piaget’s stages; (2) LURIA’S methodology remains partly obscure in spite of WOZNIAK’S recent review of this topic; (3) silent control conditions indicate that children succeed on tasks without accompanying speech, hence the attribution of regulation to speech is unfounded; (4) difficulties in coordination between a vocal and manual response explain the results more adequately than the concept of inhibition; (5) LURIA’S concept of language neglects the syntactic aspect; however, it includes aspects of general intelligence which a theory such as PIAGET’S can separate from language.

La explicación en psicología ante el desafío del significado

Resumen En este artículo se indagan los fundamentos de la psicología científica, a través de las relaciones entre el mundo, el pensamientoy el lenguaje. Para ello, parte de los filósofos griegos hasta llegar al siglo XIX, momento en que emergen las problemáticas histórica y evolucionista, pero igualmente una posición radicalmente contradictoria: el positivismo. Desde la lógica del fraccionamiento y la atomización, nacen las ciencias humanas/sociales, elaboradas sobre la base de la posición reaccionaria y estática de Comte, más que sobre la posición dinámica e histórica heredada de Darwin. Es preciso por tanto revisar la arquitectura de las ciencias humanas en tres niveles: El primero tiene como dominio de aplicación las preconstrucciones históricas humanas. El segundo se refiere a los medios que las comunidades humanas se dan para asegurar la transmisión y reproducción de esaspreconstrucciones. El último se refiere a los efectos de la transmisión de laspreconstruccionescolec-tivas sobre la constitución y desarrollo de las personas.

Procesos y estructuras del desarrollo del lenguaje

ResumenPara un importante numero de psicologos, entre los que nos contamos, el estudio de la adquisicion deI lenguaje por el nino se encuentra actualmente en un punto muerto. Este punto muerto es fundamentalmente teorico: no hay por el momento un marco conceptual especificamente psicolinguistico que permita formular satisfactoriamente los multiples problemas que plantea el desarrollo del lenguaje en el nino. Partiendo de dos posturas radicalmente opuestas, la de la corriente chomskiana, representada especialmente por J. Mehler, y la de la corriente skinneriana, representada fundamentalmente por M. Richelle, propondremos un analisis de las razones del fracaso actual de la. Psicolinguistica e intentaremos definir las condiciones que nos parecen necesarias para salir del punto muerto.Presentaremos un esbozo de marco teorico cuyo objeto es por una parte delimitar los diferentes niveles de problemas que el nino tiene que resolver en lo que respecta al dominio de su lengua y, por otra parte, poner de manifiesto...

Une science du langage pour une science de l'humain

In this article, the author first of all presents an analysis of the evolution of language sciences during the past few decades, which points to the difficulty of identifying an epistemological framework which could constitute an alternative to the now extinct Chomskyan programme. Secondly, he claims that the major issue that the social sciences have to deal with is to understand the emergence and development of specifically human gnoseology; in this respect, he examines the contributions of cognitive science, of Piagetian constructivism and of social interactionism. The author then proceeds to a detailed description of several contributions of the language sciences: Saussures conception of the status of signs and of the interactions between natural languages and texts; Volochinovs conception of the role of discourse in social development; different approaches of text architecture. Finally, on these grounds, the author demonstrates in what sense the language sciences can bring a decisive contribution to the human sciences.

Commentaires conclusifs. Pour un développement collectif de l'interactionnisme socio-discursif

RESUME ‐ Cet article presente d’abord les principes et le programme de travail de l’interactionnisme social, en tant que courant general de recherche en sciences humaines, puis il resume les propositions theoriques et methodologiques plus specifiques fournies par l’ interactionnisme socio-discursif. Il propose ensuite un commentaire du statut des contributions presentees dans ce numero, en situant leurs apports a l’elaboration collective de l’ISD. Il se termine en identifiant cinq axes de developpement de cette demarche : l’amelioration du modele de l’architecture textuelle ; le re-conceptualisation des situations de production langagiere ; la re-discussion du concept d’« action », la poursuite des travaux didactiques et la reformulation de la problematique du developpement.

Gêneros de textos, tipos de discurso e sequências. Por uma renovação do ensino da produção escrita

This paper presents the talk given by Jean-Paul Bronckart at PUC-SP that aimed at discussing the issue of teaching written production. Bronckart showed various projects of written production teaching renewal, especially those that occurred in French speaking countries, but that influenced other countries also. Bronckart explains the theoretical framework of the sociodiscursive interactionism and its point of view toward this issue, presenting its model of textual architecture and giving alternatives to the teaching of written production.

Gêneros textuais, tipos de discursos e operações psicolingüísticas

L’article de Jean-Paul Bronckart est centre sur le problemecontroverse du classement des textes en le situant dans le cadre dela psychologie du langage et dans le cadre theorique del’interactionisme social. La multiplicite et l’heterogeneite des criteresde classement et de nomenclature ont abouti a des classementshomogenes, intermediaires et heterogenes. L’auteur part deconsiderations intermediaires sur la notion de genre et sur lesproblemes de classement et presente, sous une forme resumee,quatre theses lapidaires des fondements du cadre de la psychologieinteractioniste sociale. Un modele de production textuelle estsuggere a partir du statut psychologique des textes empiriques etdes operations psycholinguistiques qui y sont sous-jacents. Unetypologie centree sur quatre entites basiques releve de ce modele,nomme “archetypes discursifs”: discours interactif, discourstheorique, recit et narration. L’auteur tient a montrer que lacomprehension du fonctionnement des textes est essentielle, visa-vis d’une lecture qui envisage une approche pedagogique.