Jerome S. Bruner

The Ontogenesis of Speech Acts.

A speech act approach to the transition from pre-linguistic to linguistic communication is adopted in order to consider language in relation to behaviour generally and to allow for an emphasis on the USE of language rather than on its form. The structure of language is seen as non-arbitrary in that it reflects both attention structures (via predication) and action structures (via the fundamental case grammatical form of language). Linguistic concepts are first realized in action. A pilot study focusing on the regulation of JOINT attention and JOINT activity within the context of mutuality between mother and infant is discussed, with emphasis on ritualization in mutual play as a vehicle for understanding the development of the formal structures of language.

From communication to language—a psychological perspective

Abstract Any realistic account of language acquisition must take into account the manner in which the child passes from pre-speech communication to the use of language proper. For it can be shown that many of the major organizing features of syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and even phonology have important precursors and prerequisites in the prespeech communicative acts of infants. Illustrations of such precursors are examined in four different domains: The mothers mode of interpreting the infants communicative intent; the development of joint referential devices en route to deixis; the childs developing strategy for enlisting aid in joint activity; the transformation of topic-comment organization in prespeech to predication proper. Finally, the conjecture is explored whether the childs knowledge of the requirements of action and interaction might provide the basis for the initial development of grammar.

The achievement and antecedents of labelling

The achievement of labelling was investigated in a longitudinal study of one mother–infant dyad, using video-recordings of their free play in a period between 0; 8 and 1; 6. Analysis of joint picture-book reading revealed that this activity had very early on the structure of a dialogue. The childs lexical labels might be regarded as more adult-like substitutes for earlier communicative forms that he had utilized in the dialogue. These were smiling, reaching, pointing and babbling vocalizations, all of which were consistently interpreted by the mother as expressing the childs intention of requesting a label or providing one. Participating in a ritualized dialogue, rather than imitation, was found to be the major mechanism through which labelling was achieved.

Games, social exchange and the acquisition of language

The nature of early games and how they might assist the infant in language acquisition were explored in a longitudinal study of two mother–infant dyads, using video-recordings of their free play. Analysis of appearance and disappearance games, in particular, revealed: (1) a restricted format, with a limited number of semantic elements, and a highly constrained set of semantic relations; (2) a clear repetitive structure, which allowed both for anticipation of the order of events and variation of the individual elements; (3) positions for appropriate vocalizations which could in turn be used to mark variations; and (4) the development of reversible role relationships between mother and child.

Interaction in Human Development

Contents: J.S. Bruner, M.H. Bornstein, On Interaction. Part I:Interaction in Cognitive Development. J. Tudge, B. Rogoff, Peer Influences on Cognitive Development: Piagetian and Vygotskian Perspectives. M. Bovet, S. ParratDayan, J. Voneche, Cognitive Development and Interaction. D. Wood, Social Interaction as Tutoring. Part II:Interaction in Language Acquisition C.E. Snow, Understanding Social Interaction and Language Acquisition: Sentences Are Not Enough. S. Curtiss, The Independence and Task-Specificity of Language. E.A. Schegloff, Reflections on Language, Development, and the Interactional Character of Talk-in-lnteraction. Part III:Child-Caretaker Interaction. C.S. Bergeman, R. Plomin, Genotype-Environmental Interaction. F.F. Strayer, E. Moss, The Co-Construction of Representational Activity During Social Interaction. M.H. Bornstein, Between Caretakers and Their Young: Two Modes of Interaction and Their Consequences for Cognitive Growth. Part IV:How to Formulate the Interaction Problem? R.M. Lerner, Developmental Contextualism and the Life-Span View of Person-Context Interaction. R. Bakeman, L.B . Adamson, P. Strisik, Lags and Logs: Statistical Approaches to Interaction C.J.Lumsden, The Gene-Culture Connection: Interaction Across Levels of Analysis.

Interference in visual recognition.

Pictures of common objects, coming slowly into focus, were viewed by adult observers. Recognition was delayed when subjects first viewed the pictures out of focus. The greater or more prolonged the initial blur, the slower the eventual recognition. Interference may be accounted for partly by the difficulty of rejecting incorrect hypotheses based on substandard cues.

Models of the Learner

Topics, including the topics of keynote addresses to learned societies, have a hermeneutic history. The hermeneutic history of a topic, we are cautioned, must be taken into account if we are fully to interpret its meaning. The topic of my paper, Models of the Learner, is no exception. It has such a history and has a proximal origin in a set of exchanges-first as a conversation and then as the topic of a more formal learned discussion. Let me set forth the beginning narrative of that hermeneutic circle (or spiral) and continue it in the discussion that follows. The setting was an international conference in

Culture and Human Development: A New Look

Each culture generates a ‘folk psychology’ in the form of narratives about how people are, how and why they act, and how they deal with trouble. These narratives typically depict a canonical state of

Learning Through Experience and Learning Through Media.

This paper is concerned broadly with the consequences of two types of experience which may be designated as direct experience and mediated experience, their partial equivalence and substitutability, and their differing potential roles in the intellectual development and acculturation of children. Our analysis will begin with the problem of the nature of direct experience and its effect on development. A clearer conception of the processes involved in direct experience will permit us better to examine the manner and extent m which mediate experience may complement, elaborate and substitute for that direct experience. Much of a childs experience is formalized through schooling. Whether for reasons of economy or effectiveness, schools have settled upon learning out of context through media which are primarily symbolic. Schooling generally reflects the naive psychology which has been made explicit by Fritz Heider (Baldwin, 1967). 3 The general assumption of such a naive psychology is that the effects of experience can be considered as knowledge, that knowledge is conscious, and that knowledge can be translated into words. Symmetrically, words can be translated into knowledge, hence, one can learn, that is acquire knowledge, from being told. Because learning is cognitive, it is possible, according to naive theory, to substitute instruction for learning through experience. Thus, we can tell children what to do and how to do it, and instil wise and proper behaviour without the actual necessity of rewarding and punishing them. It is a common belief among naive educators, how-

Celebrating Divergence: Piaget and Vygotsky

Contrasting Piaget’s emphasis on the invariant logic of growth with Vygotsky’s emphasis upon the centrality of culturally patterned dialogue in the enablement of growth, one is led to conclude that their two approaches were incommensurate. This incommensurateness may expresss a deep and possibly irreconcilable difference between two ways of knowing: one seeking to ‘explain’ and the other to ‘interpret’ human growth and the human condition. We are blessed to have had such gifted exponents of the two views at the very start of our discipline, for their divergence has alerted us to the deeper puzzles posed by research in human development.