Ser Helps Speakers Identify “Real” Properties

Abstract

We examined the effects of language on developing knowledge of the distinction between "real" and "apparent" properties of bjects by comparing the perfomance of English- and Spanish-spiaking monolingual and bilingual children on an appearance-reality task in 3 experiments. In Experiment 1, monolingul - s nf Spanish-speaking preschoolers participated in an a peprance-reality task in which Spanish speakers heard forms of the Spanish verb ser in place of the English verb "is" in the reality questions and forms of the Spanish verb estar in palce of "is" in the appearance questions. Spanish speakers performed reliably better than English speakers on the question about the real properties of less familiar objecrd. In Experiment 2, English-Spanish bilingual children participated in the same tadk used in Experiment 1. They answered half of the questions in English and half in Spanish. Bilinguals identified the real properties of objects reliably better in Spanish than in English, indicating that language can affect the ability to identify real properties. In Experiment 3, we examined the role of language in the ability of monolingual English-speaking 3-year-olds to identify real and apparent properties. These children answerd different type of appearance and reality questions, using the same objects from Experiments 1 and Half of the children answered standard appearance-reality questions; the other children answered elaborated versions of the English questions. Children in both conditions performed equivalently, suggesting that English-speaking children are not easily influenced by language in these tasks. Apparently, the advantage that the Spanish copual, ser, gives speakers of Spanish is important and unique because it cannot easily be instantiated in English.

Spanish-speaking children do not always overuse estar

“…In another study, Sera et al (1997) tested whether the use of ser and estar affected the ability of Spanish-speaking children (age range 2;11-5;10) to identify real and apparent properties. Even though several children used ser for describing temporary properties, they concluded that Spanish-speaking children correctly matched ser with permanent properties and estar with apparent properties.…”

“…While some studies show that children perform worse with estar than with ser (Sera, 1992;Schmitt et al, 2004) other show that ser is mastered with more difficulty than estar (Sera, Bales & del Castillo, 1997;Schmitt & Miller, 2007).…”

¿Es Despistado o Está Despistado?: Infiriendo la Estabilidad de los Rasgos Psicológicos

“…Sin embargo, los niños españoles identificaron propiedades reales de objetos no familiares mejor que los niños hablantes de inglés. Según Sera et al (1997), esta diferencia sugiere que el verbo ser proporciona información sobre lo que algo es en realidad.…”