Naming the Living Things: Linguistic, Experiential and Cultural Factors in Wichí and Spanish Speaking Children

TAVERNA, A., WAXMAN, S., MEDIN, D., MOSCOLONI, N. Y PERALTA, O.

Journal of Cognition and Culture

BRILL

Lugar: Leiden; Año: 2014 vol. 14 p. 213 - 233

1567-7095

This work focuses on the underlying conceptual structure of children?s category of living things from a cross-cultural, cross-linguistic perspective. School-aged children (n = 129) from three Argentinean communities (rural Wichí-speaking, rural Spanishspeaking,urban Spanish-speaking) were asked to generate the names of living things.Analyses were focused on thetypicality, semantic organization, and hierarchical level of the names mentioned. We identified convergences among the names generated by children in all three communities, as well as key differences: the typicality, habitat sand hierarchical level of the categories mentioned varied as a function of children?s language and their direct experience with the natural world. These findings provide evidence concerning the role of language, culture and experience in shaping children?sfolkbiological concepts.