Learning Through Generic Sentences about Novel Artifacts
Research on generic sentences, which refer to categories, has focused on natural kinds and social categories. This research has shown that properties of natural kinds and social categories learned through generic sentences elicit responses from children that convey the property as something important. This study examined if the characteristics of generic sentences applied to natural kinds and social categories would extend to artifacts. We hypothesized that children would interpret generic sentences about novel artifacts as referring to functional properties. In contrast, non-generic sentences referring to the same properties might be explained more often in terms of prior causes, or external reasons. Thirty-seven children from ages 4 to 5 were asked for open-ended explanations for generic and non-generic versions of the same novel artifacts’ properties. This study contributes to the existing knowledge of how generic language shapes the way children learn through generic sentences.