Displaced Reference
Certainty styling is being phased out topic by topic.
Hover over keys for definitions:Signed and spoken human languages have the ability to refer to entities and events that are removed in space and/or time from the immediate communicative situation. (1) Displaced reference has been documented in gesture used as a means of communication when the vocal channel is not available (cf. "Gesture"), particularly in the so-called "home sign" gestural systems that deaf children who are not exposed to sign language use to communicate with hearing family members. (2) Co-speech gesture (cf. "Gesture"), a non-linguistic human communication system, can at times indirectly accommodate displaced reference. (3) The only documented naturally occurring form of displaced reference in non-human species is the dance of forager honeybees, which is however limited to one type of referent only: distal food sources. (4) Border collies have demonstrated the ability to comprehend reference to objects removed from the communicative situation under controlled conditions. (5, 6) Likewise, some language-trained apes have shown evidence of reference to displaced entities (objects, other familiar apes, people, locations) in either comprehension or production. (7)
References
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Time-space–displaced responses in the orangutan vocal system, , Science Advances, 2018/11/01, Volume 4, Issue 11, (2018)
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Border collie comprehends object names as verbal referents, , Behavioural Processes, Volume 86, Issue 2, p.184 - 195, (2011)
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With the Future Behind Them: Convergent Evidence From Aymara Language and Gesture in the Crosslinguistic Comparison of Spatial Construals of Time, , Cognitive Science, Volume 30, p.401–450, (2006)
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Word learning in a domestic dog: evidence for "fast mapping"., , Science, 2004 Jun 11, Volume 304, Issue 5677, p.1682-3, (2004)
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Language Comprehension in Ape and Child, , Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, Volume 58, p.i-252, (1993)
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Gestural communication in deaf children: the effects and noneffects of parental input on early language development., , Monogr Soc Res Child Dev, 1984, Volume 49, Issue 3-4, p.1-151, (1984)
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The Origin of Speech, , Scientific American, Volume 203, Issue 3, p.88-96, (1960)
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The dancing bees: An account of the life and senses of the honey bee, , New York, p.183, (1955)