Chapter 1. A dialogical approach to the acquisition and usage of referring expressions

This chapter gives a general overview of the dialogical, theoretical, and methodological framework of the studies presented in the book, and the implications of that framework for understanding the acquisition of referring expressions and children’s early skills in this domain. Section 1 considers the formal aspects of children’s acquisition of the relevant morphological paradigms (mainly pronouns, and including fillers) in relation to certain aspects of syntactic development. Section 2 is devoted to studies on reference and referential strategies in children. After dealing with some discrepant results, we focus on the dialogical foundation of reference. As a whole, the chapter builds up a rationale for a multidimensional approach, considering the interaction of formal and functional factors in the acquisition of referring expressions, and, more generally, the way meaning is constructed in socially situated interactions driven by activities and scaffolded by adults. Section 3 presents the methodological choices this approach entails. Section 4 introduces the issues tackled by the nine studies presented in the book.