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When is communication a ‘meeting of minds’?*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Roberta Michnick Golinkoff
Roberta Michnick Golinkoff*
Affiliation:
University of Delaware
*
College of Education, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716, USA; e-mail cxc04599@udelvm.bitnet.
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Abstract

Do infants and young children (two-year-olds) possess an implicit theory of mind which is revealed through their communicative interactions or are they simply treating their interlocutors as objects to manipulate in service to their own material ends? Shatz & O'Reilly (1990) criticized a paper by Golinkoff (1986) for claiming that infants were attempting to communicate as opposed to simply manipulate their listeners. This paper takes exception to that argument. It reviews additional evidence which indicates that infants in the second year of life are capable of communicating for the sake of the ‘meeting of minds’. The alternative – treating young children's communications as only the firing off of conversational routines for the purpose of attaining material ends – seriously underestimates infants' knowledge of the communicative process.

Information

Type
Notes and Discussion
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , February 1993 , pp. 199 - 207
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

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Footnotes

[*]

For their extremely insightful comments on this manuscript I would like to thank Lois Bloom, Helen Tager-Flusberg, Carolyn Mervis and Michael Tomasello.

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