Language as a Unifying Force

The main question at play with this week’s reading is that of children’s ability to compute scalar implicatures. These scalar implicatures result when someone hears a word and is able to eliminate other words that could fit in that context because of the word that is used. For instance, the distinction between some and all is one of the main examples examined in the reading. Barner posits that children don’t recognize that the word some implies that something is missing. In one example, all of the people are doing something, Children are likely to say that some people applies as well as all people to describe the situation.

            Both Barner and Stiller claim that real-world knowledge affects a person’s ability to form these scalar implicatures. Barner finds that children fail to access scalar alternatives, or the other possible word choices, but they do have a general ability to think pragmatically. Thus, children must perform additional learning to access lexical items such as these scalar alternatives. Stiller also posits a similar reason. Children, as evidenced in his study, are able to understand ad-hoc scales, or scales that arise from real-world context. Thus, knowledge of the world, the language, and other people allows us to make pragmatic computations. Children simply do not have enough of this experience to effectively do this.

            To me, this raises an interesting question. How do we acquire this ability to compute scalar implicatures as we get older? Both Barner and Stiller suggest that children think logically, while adults think pragmatically, when processing language. An adult, through the experiences she has with the world and with her language, determines the difference between some and all. The adult can recognize that a speaker would specify all if everything described was involved. On the other hand, some specifies a distinct lack of all. Pragmatic inference allows the adult to understand this difference where children fail.

            Yet children can understand and make inferences in certain situations. Barner introduces the example of learning numeric values. A child is shown two pictures, one containing one balloon and the other containing five, with the numbers written below. The child can infer, with his knowledge of one, that the word five must refer to the new quantity of balloons. Thus, children already have a basis for making inferences, but only when these inferences do not involve necessary real-world knowledge and experience.

            For me, the question of how we acquire this ability is especially interesting considering the diversity of human experience. Each adult takes a different path on the way to maturity and language acquisition. No person has the same experiences. Yet all adults arrive at the ability to compute these pragmatic implicatures. This suggests to me that language is a unifying force in our world. Although we may all live differently, we all eventually understand the subconscious context needed to make these implicatures. We start off as different, but language moves us closer together. As we interact with each other, we inform each other about aspects of the language and the world. This creates a richer lexicon and understanding for all. Sometimes, language seems divisive, because of its variance and vastness. No one speaks in exactly the same way. Yet, for me, it is a powerful idea that underneath all of this is a similar basis of real-world knowledge and context that drives our understanding.