I'm fed up with Marmite—I'm moving on to Vegemite—What happens to the development of spatial language after the very first years?

Abstract

The present article examines children's spatial language during late phases of development. To this end, the spontaneous speech of American English speaking children between 6 and 10 years of age was analyzed within an analytical framework developed in a previous study for spontaneous speech from speakers between 10 and 19 years of age (Graf, The ontogenetic development of literal and metaphorical space in Language, Gunter Narr, 2006). The analysis defined five basic spatial categories and four levels of abstraction in spatial meaning in order to capture all spatial relations and their literal as well as non-literal uses. The results show that the spatial language of speakers between 6 and 10 years of age differs mainly with respect to speakers' preference for literal and metaphorical uses. Compared to the findings in Graf (The ontogenetic development of literal and metaphorical space in Language, Gunter Narr, 2006), the age groups analyzed here may be viewed as the developmental phase during which children and adolescents' will reach the end of their journey towards adult use of spatial reference.