Space under Construction: Language-Specific Spatial Categorization in First Language Acquisition

Abstract

Does language influence nonlinguistic cognition, and do different languages influence it in different ways? Testing these classical Whorfian questions presupposes speakers who are old enough to have mastered the relevant aspects of their language. For toddlers in the very early stages of linking meanings to language forms, we need to ask another question: do the concepts initially associated with language arise solely through nonlinguistic cognitive development, or are they formulated, at least in part, under linguistic guidance? Establishing where children's early meanings come from--the relative contributions of nonlinguistic cognition and exposure to language--is important to the debate about the Whorfian hypothesis because it provides clues to how flexible--hence how potentially malleable--children's cognitive structuring of their physical and social world is. In this chapter, we explore developmental perspectives on the Whorfian hypothesis in the domain of spatial cognition and language.