The icing on the cake. Or is it frosting? The influence of group membership on children's lexical choices

Thomas St. Pierre*, Jida Jaffan, Craig G. Chambers, Elizabeth K. Johnson

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Adults are skilled at using language to construct/negotiate identity and to signal affiliation with others, but little is known about how these abilities develop in children. Clearly, children mirror statistical patterns in their local environment (e.g., Canadian children using zed instead of zee), but do they flexibly adapt their linguistic choices on the fly in response to the choices of different peers? To address this question, we examined the effect of group membership on 7- to 9-year-olds' labeling of objects in a trivia game, exploring whether they were more likely to use a particular label (e.g., sofa vs. couch) if members of their “team” also used that label. In a preregistered study, children (N = 72) were assigned to a team (red or green) and were asked during experimental trials to answer questions—which had multiple possible answers (e.g., blackboard or chalkboard)—after hearing two teammates and two opponents respond to the same question. Results showed that children were significantly more likely to produce labels less commonly used by the community (i.e., dispreferred labels) when their teammates had produced those labels. Crucially, this effect was tied to group membership, and could not be explained by children simply repeating the most recently used label. These findings demonstrate how social processes (i.e., group membership) can guide linguistic variation in children.
Original languageEnglish
Article numbere13410
Pages (from-to)1-17
Number of pages17
JournalCognitive Science
Volume48
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Feb 2024

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 The Authors. Cognitive Science published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Cognitive Science Society (CSS).

Funding

We would like to thank Lisa Hotson, Ethan Antidormi, Priyanka Raj, and other members of the Child Language and Speech Studies Lab for their help in completing the study. This research was supported by grants awarded to the third and fourth authors from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC). We have no conflict of interest to disclose.

FundersFunder number
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada

    Keywords

    • Developmental sociolinguistics
    • Intergroup cognition
    • Language identity
    • Lexical alignment
    • Minimal groups

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