>Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2002 14:48:00 -0500
>To: relevance@linguistics.ucl.ac.uk
>From: Paulo Sousa <psousa@umich.edu>
>Subject: help
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>Dear all,
>
>This is a somewhat long message. It is more relevant for those interested
>in the pragmatics of questions - specifically, in the context of
>experimental research. If anyone can give me a feedback in terms of the
>"pragmatic effects" in the explanation of the results I've got on the last
>question of this version of the adoption paradigm:
>
>Story:
>
>One day a turtle gave birth to a little baby. Right after the baby was born
>the Turtle died without ever seeing the baby. The baby was found and taken
>right away to live with toads in a place where there are lots of toads. The
>baby grew up with toads and never saw another turtle again.
>
>Questions 1 to 4: ...
>
>Question 5:
>
>Now that the baby is all grown up, what kind of animal is it? A turtle or a
>toad?
>
>Follow-up Story:
>
>When the baby was growing up it became sick. A doctor came and, with a
>needle, took out all of the old blood that the baby got from its mother
>when it was born. The doctor then went to the animal that was taking care
>of the baby and took some of its blood to give to the baby. So the baby got
>all new blood like the blood of the toad.
>
>Question 6:
>
>Now that the baby is all grown up, what kind of animal is it? A turtle or
>a toad?
>
>4, 5, 6 and 7 year olds and adults from Brazil participated in the
>experiment. In question 5, most of the partipants in all age groups
>significantly chose the birth parent kind - the turtle.
>In question 6, most adults chose the birth parent kind, but most children
>in all ages chose the adoptive parent kind - the toad.
>
>I wonder if this asymmetry in the results of question 6 is due to the fact
>that questions 5 and 6 are exactly the same. Here are three possible ways
>that could explain the asymmetry:(If anyone can give me a feedback if my
>remarks about possible pragmatics factors in the explanations are out of
>the mark in terms of the pragmatic of questions or can suggest a more
>precise explanation.)
>
>The first one would argue that children don't have any understanding of a
>relation between blood transfusion and species kind identity and that their
>answers were simply an artifact of the task. It can be that the reiteration
>of the question in the context of the blood story made children infer the
>following implicature: the right answer to this question should be
>different from my previous answer. This is because the additional
>information given by the blood story would make the second question
>irrelevant if the speaker was searching for the same answer he had obtained
>before. In other words, if children don't have any belief about the
>relation between blood transfusion and species kind identity, the
>pragmatics of the task would bias them to a specific answer. Therefore most
>children chose the adoptive parent kind in the second answer simply because
>most of them chose the birth parent kind in the first question.
>
>The second one would argue that children have a type of belief commitment
>to the idea that blood transfusion changes kind identity and that their
>answers were simply a consequence of this belief - in this case there is no
>bias in the experiment and the second question would achieve relevance as a
>test of this belief. To understand the plausibility of this second
>explanation, it is important to point out that in Brazil as in many other
>places adults talk about blood as if it were the substance that determines
>family kind identity - people are of the same family because they share the
>same blood. I don't know exactly the level of belief commitment involved in
>this way of talk - if this is simply a metaphor without any belief
>commitment, if this is a loose way of talk driven by a belief with half
>understood content or if this is literal way of talk driven by a belief
>with a somewhat well understood content(probably different Brazilians are
>in each of these possibilities). But it can be that Brazilian children
>interpret this way of talk more literally and understand blood as the
>essence that determines family kind identity. And it can also be that when
>reasoning about the task, most children generalize from family kind
>identity to species kind identity - what is plausible since the story
>evokes the mother-baby relationship. In this case, they would choose the
>adoptive parent kind.
>
>The third one would be a compromise between the first two explanations. It
>is neither that children don't have any understanding of a relation between
>blood transfusion and species kind identity nor that they have a stable
>understanding of such a relation. It is neither that children's answers are
>simply driven by the pragmatics of the task nor that there is no bias in
>the experiment. It is rather that children have a half understood idea of
>the relation between blood transfusion and kind identity and that the bias
>of the task led them to a more literal interpretation and a consequent
>choice of the adoptive parent kind answer.
>
>All of them can explain the asymmetry - adults' answers would be driven
>simply by their belief that blood transfusion does not change species kind
>identity. And of course it can be that different children answered in
>different ways according to any of these explanations.
>
>Best, Paulo
>
>*****************************************************
>Paulo Sousa
>University of Michigan - Department of Anthropology
>Culture & Cognition program
>web page: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~psousa
>PS. Its first page represents an object X, which one?
>*****************************************************
>
>
>
--------------------------------------------
Robyn Carston
Department of Phonetics & Linguistics, UCL
Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK
Tel: + 44 (0)20 7679 3174
Fax: + 44 (0)20 7383 4108
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/home.htm
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