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ABSTRACT. Some of the factors that influence our understanding of the nature of names and words were investigated. Participants (from kindergarten, 2nd, 4th, and 6th grades, and a university undergraduate class) were told a series of brief narratives thematizing the relation between objects and names, after which they were asked questions about the origins and changeability of names and words. Responses were coded as either realist (i.e., viewing names as intrinsic properties of objects) or nominalist (i.e., understanding names and words as arbitrary social conventions). By Grade 2, the children showed a significant increase in nominalist thinking, but this was not a universal development among the participants. Many adults expressed views that did not reflect a strictly nominalist understanding of words and names. Furthermore, the use of nominalist and realist models was influenced by various social-discursive factors including the type of object being named, the type of name being asked about, and the participant's prior experience with the name. It is argued that linguistic (especially literate) experiences play a crucial role in developing a nominalist understanding of names and words.
Key words: cognitive development, discourse, linguistic development, metalinguistics
THE WAY IN WHICH LANGUAGE relates to the world has been the topic of many philosophical inquiries. Until the 12th century, the dominant view, first outlined by St. Augustine, was that words were God-given invariant labels that in some respects were essential aspects of objects in the world. In the late medieval dispute over universals, the idea that every word is a sign for an individual thing was systematically questioned by nominalist philosophers. Nominalism denied the real being of universals on the ground that the use of a general word (e.g., "pride") does not imply the existence of a general thing named by it.
The opponent of nominalism in the Middle Ages was realism, which, particularly in its Platonic form, claimed that universals had real being. Although many options between nominalism and realism were put forward in this debate, it was not until Locke (1690/1961) that the modern understanding of words as arbitrary, social conventions began to take form, an understanding that, through the work of linguists such as Saussure (1916/1983) and philosophers such as Wittgenstein (1953), came to be the standard 20th century view. Yet...