CD
117883
3?
r
Keep Your Card in This Pocket
Books will be issued only on presentation of proper
library cards.
Unless labeled otherwise, books may be retained
for two weeks. Borrowers finding books marked, de-
faced or mutilated are expected to report same at
library desk; otherwise the last borrower will be held
responsible for all imperfections discovered.
The card holder is responsible for all books drawn
on this card.
Penalty for over-due books 2c a day plus cost of
notices.
Lost cards and change of residence must be re-
ported promptly.
Public Library
Kansas City, Mo.
International Library of Jf sycroalogy : " -
Philosophy and Scientific Method
The Language
and Thought of the Child
;;: : \: c. K. OGDKN, M.A.
I* I ."**./ I (Magdalene College, Cambridge)
PHILOSOPHICAL ^STUDIES . . . . by G. E. MOORE, Litt.D.
THE Misus^pfoMiND by KARIN STEPHEN
CONFLICt ^I2>;^ REAM ' ' ' ty W ' IL R ' RlVER S, K.R.S.
PSYCHOLOGY* AN*D POLITICS . . . by W. II. R. RlVERb, F.R.S,
MEDICINE, MAGIC AND RELIGION . by W. H. R. RIVERS, F.R.S.
TRACTATUS LOGICO-PHILOSOPHICUS , . by L. WITTGENSTEIN
THE MEASUREMENT OF EMOTION . . by W. WHATKLY SMITH
PSYCHOLOGICAL TYPES . . . . by C. G. JUNG, M.I)., LL.D.
SCIENTIFIC METHOD by A. D. RITCHIE
SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT by C, I). BROAD, Litt D.
MIND AND ITS PLACE IN NATURE . . by C, P. BROAD. Litt.D.
THE MEANING OF MEANING, by C. K. OGDKN and I. A. RICHARDS
CHARACTER AND THE UNCONSCIOUS . . by ]. H, VAN DER HOOP
INDIVIDUAL PSYCHOLOGY by ALFRED ADLER
CHANCE, LOVE AND LOGIC by C. S. PEIRCE
SPECULATIONS (Preface by Jacob Epstein) . . by T. K. HULME
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING . . by KUGKNIO RIGNANO
BIOLOGICAL MEMORY by KUGENIO RIGNANO
THE PHILOSOPHY OF Music . . . . by W. POLE, F.R.S.,
THE PHILOSOPHY OF ' As IF ' . . . . by H. VAIHINGER
THE NATURE OF LAUGHTER . . . . by]. C. GREGORY
THE NATURE OF INTELLIGENCE .... by L. L. THUKSTONE
TELEPATHY AND CLAIRVOYANCE .... by R. TLSCHNER
THE GROWTH OF THE MIND by K. KOFPKA
THE MENTALITY OF APES by W. KOHLER
PSYCHOLOGY OF RELIGIOUS MYSTICISM . . . by J, H. LKUBA
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF A MUSICAL PRODIGY . . by G. REVESZ
PRINCIPLES OF LITERARY CRITICISM . . -by L A. RICHARDS
METAPHYSICAL FOUNDATIONS OF SCIENCE by K. A. BURTT, Ph.D.
COLOUR-BLINDNESS by M. COLLINS, Ph.D.
PHYSIQUE AND CHARACTER by ERNST KKETSCHMER
PSYCHOLOGY OF EMOTION ... by ], T. MACCURDY, M.D.
PROBLEMS OF PERSONALITY : . . in honour of MORTON PRINCE
PSYCHE by E. ROHDB
PSYCHOLOGY OF TIME by M. STURT
THE HISTORY OF MATERIALISM ... . by F, A. LANGK
EMOTION AND INSANITY by S. THALBITXKR
PERSONALITY by R. G. GORDON, M.D.
EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY by CHARI.KS Fox
LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT OF THE CHILD . . , by J, PIAOET
COMPARATIVE PHILOSOPHY . , . by P. MASSON-OURSKL
IN PREPARATION
THE LAWS OF FEELING by F. PAULHAN
CONVERSION by S. PK SANCTIS
THOUGHT AND THE BRAIN by H. PI&RON
SEX AND REPRESSION IN SAVAGE SOCIETY . by B. MALINOWKKI, D.Sc.
THE ANALYSIS OF MATTER . . by BBRTRAND RUSSELL, F.R.S.
PSYCHOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY . . by W. H. R. RIVRKS, F.H.S.
STATISTICAL METHOD IN ECONOMICS , by p. SARGANT FLORENCE
THE PRIMITIVE MIND by F. RAWN, Ph.D.
COLOUR-HARMONY . by JAMK WOOD
THE THEORY OF HEARING . . . . by H. HARTRIIXSB, D.Sc,
SUPERNORMAL PHYSICAL PHENOMENA , . by K, J. DINGWALL
THEORETICAL BIOLOGY by J. VON UKXKOLL
THE INTEGRATIVE ACTION OF THE MlND by K. MlLLER
PLATO'S THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE . . . by F. M. CORN FORD
PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOPATHOLOGY , by WM. BROWN, M.1X, D.Sc.
THEORY OF MEDICAL DIAGNOSIS . by F, G. CKOOKKHANK, M.D.
LANGUAGE AS SYMBOL AND AS EXPRESSION , . by K, SAPIR
A HISTORY OF ETHICAL THEORY. . . by M. GINSBERG, D.Lit.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF LAW by A. L. GoonHART
PSYCHOLOGY OF MUSICAL GENIUS . . by G, REVESZ
MODERN THEORIES OF PERCEPTION , . . by W. J. H. SPROTT
SCOPE AND VALUE OF ECONOMIC THEORY . by BARBARA WOOTTON
MATHEMATICS FOR PHILOSOPHERS . , by G. H. HARDY, K.R.S,
THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS , by E. VON HARTMANN
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MYTHS . . by G. FXLIOT SMITH, F.R.S.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF Music ... by EDWARD j. DENT
PSYCHOLOGY OF PRIMITIVE PEOPLES . bv B. MALINOWSKT. D.Sc.
The
Language and Thought
of the Child
By
JEAN PIAGET
Professor at the University of Neuchatel
and at the Institut J. J. Rousseau, Geneva
Preiace by
PROFESSOR E. CLAPAREDE
NEW YORK
HARCOURT, BRACE & COMPANY, INC.
LONDON: KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., LTD.
1926
Translated by
MARJORIK WARDEN
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE ix
FOREWORD . . . *. . . . xix
CHAPTER I
THE FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE IN TWO
CHILDREN OF SIX I
I. The material ....... 5
I. An example of the talk taken down, 6 2. The functions
of child language classified, 9 3. Repetition (echolalia),
ii 4. Monologue, 13 5. Collective monologue, 18
6. Adapted information, 19 7. Criticism and derision, 26
8. Commands, requests, threats, 27 9. Questions and
answers, 28.
II. Conclusions 34
10. The measure of ego-centrism, 34 n. Conclusion, 37
12. Results and hypotheses, 43.
CHAPTER II
TYPES AND STAGES IN THE CONVERSATION OF
CHILDREN BETWEEN THE AGES OF FOUR
AND SEVEN SO
i. Check of the coefficient of ego-cenmsm, 51 2. Types
of conversation between children, 52 3. Stage I :
Collective monologue, 56 4. Stage HA, First type:
Association with the action of others, 58 5. Stage
UA, Second type : Collaboration in action or in non-
vi CONTENTS
abstract thought, 60 7. Stage I IB, First type:
Quarrelling, 65 8. Stage IIu, Second type; Primi-
tive argument, 68 9, Stage IIlB : Genuine argument,
7010, Conclusions, 73.
CHAPTER III
UNDERSTANDING AND VERBAL EXPLANATION
IJEWEEN CHILDREN OF THE SAME AGE
BETWEEN THE YEARS OF SIX AND EIGHT. 76
i. The method of experiment, 792. Parcelling out the
material, 86 3. Numerical results, 944, Ego-centrism
in the explanations given by one child to another, 99
5. The ideas of order and cause in the expositions given
by the explainers, 1076. The factors of understanding,
119 7. Conclusion. The question of stages and the
effort towards objectivity in the accounts given by children
to one another, 124.
CHAPTER IV
SOME PECULIARITIES OF VERBAL UNDER-
STANDING IN THE CHILD BETWEEN THE
AGES OF NINE AND ELEVEN 127
7. Verbal syncretism, 131 2, Syncretism of reasoning,
136 3. The need for justification at any price, 1454,
Syncretism of understanding", 1505. Conclusion, 157.
CHAPTER V
THE QUESTIONS OF A CHILD OF SIX . . 1 62
I. f< Whys" 164
I. Principal types of "whys," 166 2. "Whys of causa
explanation." Introduction and classification by material
171 3. Structure of the "whys of explanation/' 1804.
Whys of motivation/* 1885. a Whys of justification, 1 '
191 -6, Conclusions, 197.
LUJNIJiJNIb vn
II. Questions not expressed under the form " why " . 199
7. Classification of Del's questions not expressed under
the form, "why," 199 8. Questions of causal explanation,
202 9. Questions of reality and history, 207 10. Ques-
tions about human actions and questions about rules, 214
ii. Questions of classification and calculation, 216.
III. Conclusions 217
12. Statistical results, 217 13. The decline of precaus-
ality, 223 14. Conclusion. Categories of thought or
logical functions in the child of seven, 227.
APPENDIX 239
INDEX 245
PREFACE
THE importance of this remarkable work deserves to be
doubly emphasized, for its novelty consists both in the
results obtained and in the method by which they have
been reached.
How does the child think? How does he speak?
What are the characteristics of his judgment and of
his reasoning? For half a century the answer has
been sought to these questions which are those which
we meet with at the very threshold of child psychology.
If philosophers and biologists have bent their interest
upon the soul of the child, it is because of the initial
surprise they experienced at his logic and speech. In
proof of this, we need only recall the words of Taine,
of Darwin and of Egger, which are among the first
recorded in the science of child logic.
I cannot give a list here of all the works that have
appeared since that period those of Preyer and of
Sully, of P. Lombroso and of Ament, of Binet, of
Stern, of Cramaussel and many others in order to
estimate the contribution made to the subject by Jean
Piaget. I shall try, however, to state roughly and
approximately the special characteristics of his work,
so as to indicate wherein consists the novelty of the
studies which this volume inaugurates.
Up till now such enquiries as have been made into
the intelligence and language of the child have been
in the main analytic. All the different forms which
reasoning and abstraction, the acquisition and forma-
x PREFACE
tion of words and phrases may take in the child have
been described, and a detailed and certainly serviceable
catalogue has been made of the mistakes, errors and
confusions of this undeveloped mentality, and of
the accidents and deformities of the language which
expresses it.
But this labour does not seem to have taught the
psychologist exactly what he wanted to know, viz. why
the child thinks and expresses himself in a certain
manner; why his curiosity is so easily satisfied with
any answer one may give or which he may give himself
(testifying to that riimportequismc which Binet con-
sidered one of the chief characteristics of imbecile
mentality) ; why he affirms and believes things so
manifestly contrary to fact ; whence comes his peculiar
verbalism ; and how and by what steps this incoherence
is gradually superseded by the logic of adult thought
In a word, contemporary research has stated the pro-
blem clearly but has failed to give us the key for its
solution. To the psychologist the mind of the child
still gives an impression of appalling chaos. As M.
Cramaussel once truly remarked: "Thought in a
child is like a net-work of tangled threads, which may
break at any moment if one tries to disentangle them."
Explanations have naturally been forthcoming to
account for such striking facts. The weakness, the
debility of the child's brain have been cited. But, I
would ask, does this tell us anything? The blame has
also been laid on the insufficiency of the experience
acquired, on the lack of skill of the senses, on a too
limited contingent of associations, on the accidents of
imitation. . . True as they may be, however,
these statements lead us nowhere.
After all, the error has been, if I am not mistaken,
that in examining child thought we have applied to
PREFACE
XI
it the mould and pattern of the adult mind ; we have
considered it from the point of view of the logician
rather than of the psychologist. This method, excel-
lent perhaps for establishing our first inventory, has
yielded all it can yield, and ends only in a blind alley.
It enables us to straighten out the skein but it does
not teach us how to disentangle the threads.
M. Jean Piaget's studies offer us a completely new
version of the child's mind.
M. Piaget is lucky enough to be still young. He
was initiated into psychology at a time when the
superficial associationism which had more or less intoxi-
cated his seniors thirty or forty years back was deacl
and buried, and when vistas full of promise were open-
ing out before our science. For James, Flournoy and
Dewey it was the dynamic and pragmatic tendency that
counted ; for Freud, psycho-analysis ; for Durkheim
(no matter whether his doctrine was sound or not)
the recognition of the role played by social life in
the formation of the individual mind ; for Hall, Groos,
Binet and the rest, genetic psychology propped up
by a biological conception of the child.
By a stroke of genius, M. Piaget having assimil-
ated these new theories, or rather having extracted the
good from each, has made them all converge on to
an interpretation of the child's mentality. He has
kindled a light which will help to disperse much of
the obscurity which formerly baffled the student of
child logic.
Do you know the little problem which consists in
making four equal triangles with six matches? At
first, while one thinks of it on the flat, it appears, and
quite rightly so, to be insoluble; but as soon as one
thinks of solving it in three-dimensional space, the
difficulty vanishes. I hope I do not misrepresent M.
Xll
PREFACE
Piaget's ideas in using this simple and somewhat crude
example to illustrate the nature of his contributions
to child psychology.
Up till now we were as helpless in face of the problem
presented by child mentality as before a puzzle from
which several important pieces were missing, whilst
other pieces seemed to have been borrowed from another
game and were impossible to place. Now M. Piaget
relieves our embarrassment by showing us that this
problem of childish thought does not consist of one
puzzle, but of at least two. In possession of this key we
no longer try to arrange on the flat, pieces which in
order to fit together require a space of three dimensions.
Our author shows us in fact that the child's mind is
woven on two different looms, which are as it were
placed one above the other. By far the most important
during the first years is the work accomplished on the
lower plane. This is the work done by the child him-
self, which attracts to him pell-mell and crystallizes
round his wants all that is likely to satisfy these wants.
It is the plane of subjectivity, of desires, games, and
whims, of the Lustprinzip as Freud would say. The
upper plane, on the contrary, is built up little by little
by social environment, which presses more and more
upon the child as time goes on. It is the plane of
objectivity, speech, and logical ideas, in a word the
plane of reality. As soon as one overloads it, it bends,
creaks and collapses, and the elements of which it is
composed fall on to the lower plane, and become mixed
up with those that properly belong there. Other pieces
remain half-way, suspended between Heaven and Earth.
One can imagine that an observer whose point of view
was such that he did not observe this duality of planes,
and supposed the whole transition to be taking place
on one plane, would have an impression of extreme
PREFACE
xiu
confusion. Because each of these planes has a logic of
Its own which protests loudly at being coupled with that
of the other. And M. Piaget, in suggesting to us with
confirmatory proofs that thought in the child is inter-
mediate between autistic thinking and the logical
thought processes of the adult, gives us a general
perspective of child mentality which will singularly
facilitate the interpretation of its various functions.
This new conception to which M. Piaget leads us,
whether in tacit or explicit opposition to current
opinion, could be stated (though always in very schematic
and summary fashion) in yet another set of terms.
Whereas, if I am not mistaken, the problem of child
mentality has been thought of as one of quantity,
M, Piaget has restated it as a problem of quality.
Formerly, any progress made in the child's intelligence
was regarded as the result of a certain number of ad-
ditions and subtractions, such as increase of new
experience and elimination of certain errors all of
them phenomena which it was the business of science
to explain. Now, this progress is seen to depend first
and foremost upon the fact that this intelligence under-
goes a gradual change of character. If the child mind
so often appears opaque to adult observation, it is not
so much because there are elements added to or wanting
in it, not so much because it is full of holes and ex-
crescences as because it belongs to a different kind of
thought autistic or symbolic thought, which the adult
has long since left behind him or suppressed.
The method which in M. Piaget's hands has proved
to be so prolific is also one of great originality. Its
author has christened it "the clinical method." It is,
in fact, that method of observation, which consists in
letting the child talk and in noticing the manner in
which his thought unfolds itself. The novelty consists
XIV
PREFACE
in not being content simply to record the answers given
by the child to the questions which have been put to
him, but letting him talk of his own accord. "If we
follow up each of the child's answers, and then, allowing
him to take the lead, induce him to talk more and more
freely, we shall gradually establish for every department
of intelligence a method of clinical analysis analogous
to that which has been adopted by psychiatrists as a
means of diagnosis." 1
This clinical method, therefore, which is also an art,
the art of questioning, does not confine itself to super-
ficial observations, but aims at capturing what is hidden
behind the immediate appearance of things. It analyses
down to its ultimate constituents the least little remark
made by the young subjects. It does not give up the
struggle when the child gives incomprehensible or
contradictory answers, but only follows closer in chase
of the ever-receding thought, drives it from cover,
pursues and tracks it down till it can seize it, dissect it
and lay bare the secret of its composition.
But in order to bear fruit this method required to be
completed by a judicious elaboration of the documents
which it had served to collect And this is where M.
Piaget's qualities as a naturalist have intervened. All
his readers will be impressed by the care with which
he has set out his material, by the way in which he
classifies different types of conversation, different types
of questions, different types of explanations ; and they
will admire the suggestive use to which he puts this
classification. For M. Piaget is a first-class biologist
Before going in for psychology, he had already made
his name in a special branch of the zoology of molluscs,
As early as 1912 (he was then only fifteen) he published
studies on the molluscs of the Neueh&tel Jura, A little
i Arch, de Psycho!, % XVIIL, p. 276.
PREFACE xv
later, he wrote a monograph on the molluscs of the
Valais and Leman districts. The subject of his doctor's
thesis in 1918 was the Distribution of the different
varieties of molluscs in the Valaisian Alps.
It must not be supposed, however, that in collecting
psychological material in the place of snails, and in
ordering and labelling it with so much care, M. Piaget
has simply turned from one hobby to another. Far
from it. His observations are not made for the pleasure
of making them. Even in the days when he was collect-
ing shells on the dry slopes of the Valais mountains, his
only object was to discover whether there was any
relation between the shape of those little animals and
the altitude at which they live, between variation and
adaptation. Still more is this so in his psychological
work. His only aim in collecting, recording, and
cataloguing all these different types of behaviour is
to see the assembled materials in a clearer light, to
facilitate the task of comparing and affiliating them
one to another. Our author has a special talent for
letting the material speak for itself, or rather for hearing
it speak for itself. What strikes one in this first book
of his is the natural way in which the general ideas
have been suggested by the facts ; the latter have not
been forced to fit ready-made hypotheses.
It is in this sense that the book before us may be
said to be the work of a naturalist. And this is all the
more remarkable considering that M. Piaget is among
the best informed of men on all philosophical questions.
He knows every nook and cranny and is familiar with
every pitfall of the old logic the logic of the text-
books ; he shares the hopes of the new logic, and is
acquainted with the delicate problems of epistemology.
But this thorough mastery of other spheres of know-
ledge, far from luring him into doubtful speculation,
XVI
PREFACE
has on the contrary enabled him to draw the line very
clearly between psychology and philosophy, and to
remain rigorously on the side of the first. His work
is purely scientific.
If then M. Piaget takes us so far into the fundamental
structure of the intelligence of the child, is it not because
the questions he set himself in the first instance were
questions of function? The writer of these lines may
perhaps be allowed to emphasize this idea of which
he is a particular advocate. The functional question
fertilizes the structural question, and states the problem
better than any other way. It alone gives full signifi-
cance to the details of mechanism, because it sees them
in relation to the whole machine. So it may well be
because he began with the questions: " Why does the
child talk? What are the functions of language?" that
M. Piaget has been led to such fertile observations and
conclusions.
But we would never have done if we once began
to point out all that is new and suggestive in this
book. Why should we? The reader will discover it
for himself by the perusal of its pages. I only wish
in conclusion to address to my colleague a word of
thanks in the name of the Institut f. f. Rousseau.
When we opened this Institute in 1912, it was hoped
that the two main pillars upon which we intended to
build the edifice the scientific study of the child and
the training of teachers would not remain isolated, but
be spanned and mutually reinforced by many a con-
necting arch. But the cares of organization, the un-
expected developments of an undertaking which receives
fresh impetus and grows faster than one had calculated,
the requirements of daily teaching, to say nothing of
the disturbances caused by the war all these have
prevented our scientific investigations from proceeding
PREFACE xvii
as we would have wished. The Institut Rousseau has,
it is true, given birth to some remarkable works, such
as V Instinct combatif by M. Bovet, the director, such as
the patient investigations made by Mile Descoeudres
on child language ; our students too have often col-
laborated in research, and have constantly taken part
in experiments. It is only since M. Piaget's arrival,
however, that a union closer than could ever have been
hoped for has been achieved between the most rigorous
scientific research and an initiation of the students to
the psychology of the child.
Having therefore witnessed for two years the con-
summate skill with which my colleague has utilized and
directed his developing powers in tracking down the
quarry with which he has presented us in so masterly
a fashion, I feel it both a privilege and a duty to express
rny sincere admiration for his work.
E. CLAPAREDE.
FOREWORD
THESE Studies in child logic are the outcome of research
work carried out in collaboration with others at the
Institut Rousseau during the school year of 1921-1922,
and of a course of lectures on child thought given
at the Geneva School of Science, which were based
upon the material collected during the same year.
This means that the essays before us are first and fore-
most a collection of facts and documents, and that the
bond between the various chapters is not that of
systematic exposition, but of unity of method applied
to a diversity of material.
Child logic is a subject of infinite complexity,
bristling with problems at every point problems of
functional and structural psychology, problems of logic
and even of epistemology. It is no easy matter to
hold fast to the thread of consistency throughout this
labyrinth, and to achieve a systematic exclusion of
all problems not connected with psychology. If we
try too soon to give a deductive exposition of experi-
mental results, there is always the risk of succumbing
to preconceived ideas, to the easy analogies suggested
by the history of science and the psychology of primitive
peoples, or worse still to the prejudices of the logical
or epistemological system to which we unwittingly sub-
scribe, try though we may to maintain a purely
xix
xx FOREWORD
psychological attitude of mind. The logic of the text-
books and the naive realism of common sense are both
in this respect fatal to any sane psychology of cognition,
and the more so since in trying to avoid the one we
are often thrown back upon the other.
For all these reasons I have abstained on principle
from giving too systematic an account of our material,
and a posteriori from making any generalizations out-
side the sphere of child psychology. All I have
attempted has been to follow step by step the facts as
given in experiments. We know well enough that
experiment is always influenced by the hypothesis
which occasioned it, but I have for the time being
confined myself strictly to the discussion of facts.
Moreover, for teachers and all those whose work calls
for an exact knowledge of the child's mind, facts take
precedence over theory. I am convinced that the mark
of theoretical fertility in a science is its capacity for
practical application. This book is therefore addressed
to teachers as much as to specialists in child psychology,
and the writer will be only too pleased if the results
he has accumulated are of service to the art of teaching,
and if in return his own thesis finds practical confirma-
tion in this way. He is convinced in this connexion
that what he tries to prove in this work concerning
the ego-centrism of child thought and the part played
by social life in the development of reason, must admit
of pedagogic application. If he personally has not
attempted straightaway to establish these consequences,
it is because he prefers to let professional opinion have
the first say.
Specialists in child logic will not, I hope, take me
to task for the disjointed character of this book, which
FOREWORD xxi
Is, as I have said, simply a study of the facts of the
case. I hope in a few years' time to produce a work
dealing with child thought as a whole, in which I
shall again take up the principal features of child
logic, and state their relation to the biological factors
of adaptation (imitation and assimilation). This is
the subject which was dealt with in the lectures above
referred to. Before publishing these in systematic form
it will be necessary to give as minute and exhaustive
a catalogue as possible of the material on which their
conclusions are based. The present volume is the
first of this series. I hope to follow it up with
another, which will be entitled : Judgment and Reason in
the Child. Together, these two will go to make up
" Studies in Child Logic." In a second work I shall
undertake to analyse causality and the function of reality
in the child. Then only shall we be in a position to
formulate a synthesis. If it were attempted any sooner,
any such synthesis would be constantly interrupted by
an exposition of the evidence, which in its turn would
tend to be distorted in the process.
One last word in acknowledgment of my debt to
those, without whose teaching this work could never
have been undertaken. M. Clapar&de and M. Bovet of
Geneva have consistently helped me by referring every-
thing to the point of view of function and to that of
instinct two points of view without which one passes
over the deepest springs of activity in the child. Dr
Simon of Paris introduced me to the tradition of Binet.
M. Janet, whose influence will often be traced in these
pages, familiarized me with a psychology of conduct
which offers a happy combination of genetic methods
and clinical analysis. I have also been deeply in-
xxii FOREWORD
fluenced by the social psychology of M. C. Blondel and
Professor J, M. Baldwin. It will likewise be apparent
how much I owe to psycho-analysis, which in my
opinion has revolutionized the psychology of primitive
thought. Finally, I need hardly recall Flournoy's
contribution to French psychology by his fusion of
the results of psycho-analysis with those of ordinary
psychology.
Outside the sphere of psychology I owe much to
authorities who have not been quoted or not suf-
ficiently quoted because of my desire to exclude all
but strictly paedological questions. The classic works
of M. Levy-Bruhl, for instance, have been a perpetual
source of inspiration. But it has been impossible in
this book to define my attitude towards sociological
explanations. The reason for this is very easy to
understand. Child logic and the logic of primitive
races are' far too much alike in some respects, and
far too different in others to justify us in discussing
so delicate a parallel in connexion with the scanty
evidence with which I propose to deal. I shall there-
fore keep this discussion for a later date. In logic,
in the history and philosophy of the sciences, and
in the theory of knowledge all spheres of knowledge
connected more closely than one would think with
the development of logic in the child I am indebted
to the historico-critical method of rny teacher, M.
Arnold Reymond, and to the standard works of M. E.
Meyerson and M. Brunschvicg. * Among the writings
of the latter, Les Etapes de la Philosophic math&tnatique
and more recently Uexplrience humaine et la causalite
physique have exercised a very decisive influence.
Finally, the teaching of M. Lalande and his work
FOREWORD xxiii
on the part played by the convergence of minds in
the formation of logical norms, have supplied a valuable
touchstone in our researches upon the ego-centrism of
the child,
JEAN PIAGET.
GENEVA* INSTITUT ROUSSEAU.
CHAPTER I
THE FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE IN
TWO CHILDREN OF SIX 1
THE question which we shall attempt to answer in this
book may be stated as follows : What are the needs
which a child tends to satisfy when he talks? This
problem is, strictly speaking, neither linguistic nor
logical ; it belongs to functional psychology, but it
should serve nevertheless as a fitting prelude to any
study of child logic.
At first sight the question may strike one as curious,
for with the child, as with us, language would seem to
enable the individual to communicate his thoughts to
others. But the matter is not so simple. In the first
place, the adult conveys different modes of thought by
means of speech. At times, his language serves only
to assert, words state objective facts, they convey in-
formation, and are closely bound up with cognition.
"The weather is changing for the worse/' "Bodies
fall to the ground." At times, on the other hand,
language expresses commands or desires, and serves
to criticize or to threaten, in a word to arouse feelings
and provoke action " Let's go,'* " How horrible ! " etc.
If we knew approximately in the case of each individual
the proportion of one type of speech to another, we
should be in possession of psychological data of great
interest. But another point arises. Is it certain that even
adults always use language to communicate thoughts?
To say nothing of internal speech, a large number of
1 With the collaboration of Mile Germaine Guex and of Mile Hilda de
Meyenburg.
2 STUDIES IN CHILD LOGIC
people, whether from the working classes or the more
absent-minded of the intelligentsia, are in the habit
of talking to themselves, of keeping up an audible
soliloquy. This phenomenon points perhaps to a pre-
paration for social language. The solitary talker in-
vokes imaginary listeners, just as the child invokes
imaginary playfellows. This is perhaps an example of
that return shock of social habits which has been de-
scribed by Baldwin; the individual repeats in relation to
himself a form of behaviour which he originally adopted
only in relation to others. In this case he would talk to
himself in order to make himself work, simply because
he has formed the habit of talking to others in order
to work on them. Whichever explanation is adopted,
it would seem that language has been side-tracked from
its supposed function, for in talking to himself, the
individual experiences sufficient pleasure and excite-
ment to divert him from the desire to communicate his
thoughts to other people. Finally, if the function of
language were merely to l communicate,' the pheno-
menon of verbalism would hardly admit of explanation.
How could words, confined as they are by usage to
certain precise meanings (precise, because their object is
to be understood), eventually come to veil the confusion
of thought, even to create obscurity by the multiplication
of verbal entities, and actually to prevent thought from
being communicable? This is not the place to raise
the vexed question of the relation between thought and
language, but we may note in passing that the very
existence of such questions shows how complex are
the functions of language, and how futile the attempt
to reduce them all to one that of communicating
thought.
i The functional problem therefore exists for the adult
| How much more urgently will it present itself in the
I case of defective persons, primitive races and young
children. Janet, Freud, Ferenczi, Jones, Spielrein, etc.,
have brought forward various theories on the language
THE FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE 3
of savages, imbeciles, and young children, all of which are
of the utmost significance for an investigation such as we
propose to make of the child mind from the age of six.
M. Janet, for example, considers that the earliest
words are derived from cries with which animals and
even savages accompany their action threats, cries of
anger in the fight, etc. In the earliest forms of social
activity, for instance, the cry uttered by the chief as he
enters into battle becomes the signal to attack. Hence
the earliest words of all, which are words of command.
Thus the word, originally bound up with the act of
which it is an element, at a later stage suffices alone
to release the act 1 The psycho-analysts have given
an analogous explanation of word magic. The word,
they say, having originally formed part of the act, is
able to evoke all the concrete emotional contents of
the act. Love cries, for instance, which lead up to
the sexual act are obviously among the most primitive
words ,* henceforward these and all other words alluding
to the act retain a definite emotional charge. Such
facts as these explain the very wide-spread tendency
of primitive thought to look upon the names of persons
and objects, and upon the designation of events as
pregnant with the qualities of these objects and events.
Hence the belief that It is possible to work upon them
by the mere evocation of words, the word being no
longer a mere label, but a formidable reality partaking
of the nature of the named object. 2 Mme Spielrein 3
has endeavoured to find the same phenomena in an
analysis of the very earliest stages of child language.
She has tried to prove that the baby syllables, mama^
uttered in so many tongues to call the mother, are
formed by labial sounds which indicate nothing more
1 British Joum. of Psych. (Med. Sect.), Vol. I, Part 2, 1921, p. 151.
2 See Jones, E, * f A Linguistic Factor in English Characterology," Intern.
Journal of Psycho- Anal., Vol. I, Part 3, p. 256 (see quotations from Ferenczi
and Freud, p. 257).
3 See Intei n. Zeitschrift f. PsychoanaL, Vol. VI, p. 401 (a report of the
proceedings of the Psycho -analytical Conference at the Hague).
4 STUDIES IN CHILD LOGIC
than a prolongation of the act of sucking. & Mama '
would therefore be a cry of desire, and then a command
given to the only being capable of satisfying this desire.
But on the other hand, the mere cry of * mama ' has In it
a soothing element ; in so far as it is the continuation of
the act of sucking, it produces a kind of hallucinatory
satisfaction. ' Command and immediate satisfaction are
in this case therefore almost indistinguishable, and so
intermingled are these two factors that one cannot tell
when the word is being used as a real command and
when it is playing its almost magical role.
Meumann and Stern have shown that the earliest
substantives of child language are very far from denot-
ing concepts, but rather express commands or desires ;
and there are strong reasons for presuming that
primitive child language fulfils far more complicated
functions than would at first appear to be the case.
Even when due allowance is made for these theories
in all their details, the fact remains that many ex-
pressions which for us have a purely conceptual
meaning, retain for many years in the child mind a
significance that is not only affective but also well-
nigh magical, or at least connected with peculiar modes
of behaviour which should be studied for themselves
and quite apart from adult mentality.
It may therefore be of interest to state the functional
problem in connexion with older children, and this is
what we intend to do as an introduction to the study of
child logic, since logic and language are obviously inter- '
dependent. We may not find any traces of ' primitive '
phenomena. At any rate, we shall be very far removed
from the common-sense view that the child makes use
of language to communicate his thoughts.
We need not apologize for the introductory character
of the questions dealt with in this work. We have
simply thrown out certain feelers. We have aimed
first and foremost at creating a method which could be
applied to fresh observations and lead to a comparison
THE FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE 5
of results. This method, which it was our only object
to obtain, has already enabled us to establish certain
facts. But as we have only worked on two children of
six years old, and as we have taken down their talk
in its entirety, it is true only for a month and during
certain hours of the day, we advance our conclusions
provisionally, pending their confirmation in the later
chapters of the book.
I. THE MATERIAL
The method we have adopted is as follows. Two
of us followed each a child (a boy) for about a month at
the morning class at the Maiso?i des Petits de flnstitut
Rousseau, taking down in minute detail and in its
context everything that was said by the child. In the
class where our two subjects were observed the scholars
draw or make whatever they like ; they model and play
at games of arithmetic and reading, etc. These activities
take place in complete freedom ; no check is put upon
any desire that may manifest itself to talk or play
together ; no intervention takes place unless it is asked
for. The children work individually or in groups, as
they choose ; the groups are formed and then break up
again without any interference on the part of the adult ;
the children go from one room to another (modelling
room, drawing room, etc.) just as they please without
being asked to do any continuous work so long as they
do not themselves feel any desire for it. In short,
these school-rooms supply a first-class field of observa-
tion for everything connected with the study of the
social life and of the language of childhood. 1
We must anticipate at once any objection that may
be advanced on the plea that since these children were
used as subjects they were not observed in natural
conditions. In the first place, the children, when they
1 Our grateful thanks are due to the ladies in charge of the Maison des
Petits, Miles Audemars and Lafandel, who gave us full freedom to work in
their classes.
6 STUDIES IN CHILD LOGIC
are in the play-room with their friends, talk just as
much as they would at home, since they are allowed to
talk all day long at school, and do not feel censured or
constrained in any way whatsoever. In the second
place, they do not talk any more at school than they
would at home, since observation shows that up to a
certain age, varying between 5 and yf, children gener-
ally prefer to work individually rather than in groups
even of two. Moreover, as we have taken down in its
entirety the context of our two subjects' conversations,
especially when it was addressed to an adult, it will be
quite easy to eliminate from our statistics all that is
not spontaneous talk on the part of the children, z..,
all that may have been said in answer to questions that
were put to them.
Once the material was collected, we utilized it as
follows. We began by numbering all the subjects'
sentences. As a rule the child speaks in short sen-
tences interspersed with long silences or with the talk
of other children. Each sentence is numbered separ-
ately. Where the talk is a little prolonged, the reader
must not be afraid of reckoning several consecutive
sentences to one number, so long as to each sentence
containing a definite idea only one number is affixed.
In such cases, which are rare enough, the division is
necessarily arbitrary, but this is of no importance for
statistics dealing with hundreds of sentences.
Once the talk has been portioned out into numbered
sentences, we endeavour to classify these into elementary
functional categories. It is this method of classification
which we are now about to study.
i. AN EXAMPLE OF THE TALK TAKEN DOWN. Let
us first of all give one complete example of the docu-
ments collected in this way, and let us examine it in
all its complexity :
23. Pie (to Ez who is drawing a tram-car with carriages
in tow): B r it>t the trams that are hooked on behind don't have
any flags. (No answer.)
THE FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE 7
24. (Talking about his tram). They don't have any
carriages hooked on . . . (He was addressing no one
in particular. No one answers him.)
25. (To Bea), 'Tsa tram that hasn't got no carriages.
(No answer.)
26. (To Hei), This tram hasn't got no carriages, Hei,
look, it isn't red, d'you see . . . (No answer.)
27. (Lev says out loud, ' A funny gentleman J from a
certain distance, and without addressing himself to Pie
or to anyone else). Pie : A funny gentleman ! (Goes on
drawing his tram.)
28. Fm leaving the tram white.
29. (Ez who is drawing next to him says, f Fm doing
it yellow '), No, you mustn't do it all yellow*
30. I'm doing the stair-case, look. (Bea answers, ' I
can't come this afternoon, I've got a Eurhythmic class/)
31. What did you say? (Bea repeats the same
sentence.)
32. What did you say ? (Bea does not answer. She
has forgotten what she said, and gives Ro a push.)
33. (To Bea), Leave him alone.
34. (Mile B. asks Ez if he would like to come with
her), Come here Ez, it isn't finished. 34 bis. Please
teacher, Ez hasn't finished.
35. (Without addressing himself to anyone,) I'm
doing some black stones* . . .
36. (Id), Pretty . . . these stones.
37. (To Ez), Better than you, eh ? (No answer. Ez
had not heard the previous remark.)
We have chosen this example from Pie (6J years)
because it is taken during the most sociable activity of
which this child is capable : he is drawing at the same
table as his bosom friend, Ez, and is talking to him
the whole time. It would therefore be natural in a
case of this kind if the sole function of speech were to
communicate thought. But let us examine the matter
a little more closely. It will be seen that from the
social point of view the significance of these sentences
or fragments of sentences is extremely varied. When
Pie says: " They don't have . . . etc." (24), or " Fm
doing . . . etc." (35) he is not speaking to anyone.
He is thinking aloud over his own drawing, just as
8 STUDIES IN CHILD LOGIC
people of the working classes mutter to themselves over
their work. Here, then, is $ first category which should
be singled out, and which in future we shall designate
as monologue. When Pie says to Hei or to Bea : " 'T'sa
tram . . . etc." (25) or a This tram . . . etc. " (26) he
seems on this occasion to want to make himself under-
stood ; but on closer examination it will be seen that he
cares very little who is listening to him (he turns from Bea
to Hel to say exactly the same thing) and, furthermore,
that he does not care whether the person he addresses
has really heard him or not. He believes that someone
is listening to him ; that is all he wants. Similarly, when
Bea gives him an answer devoid of any connexion with
what he has just been saying (30), it is obvious that he
does not seek to understand his friend's observation nor
to make his own remark any clearer. Each one sticks
to his own idea and is perfectly satisfied (30-32). The
audience is there simply as a stimulus. Pie talks about
himself just as he does when he soliloquizes, but
with the added pleasure of feeling himself an object of
interest to other people. Here then is a new category
which we shall call the collective monologue. It is to be
distinguished from the preceding category and also from
those in which thoughts are actually exchanged or
information given. This last case constitutes a separate
category which we shall call adapted information, and to
which -we can relegate sentences 23 and 34 6. In this
case the child talks, not at random, but to specified
persons, and with the object of making them listen and
understand. In addition to these practical and objective
forms of information, we can distinguish others of a
more subjective character consisting of commands (33),
expressions of derision or criticism, or assertions of
personal superiority, etc. (37). Finally, we may
distinguish mere senseless repetitions, questions and
answers.
Let us now establish the criteria of these various
categories.
THE FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE 9
2. THE FUNCTIONS OF CHILD LANGUAGE CLASSI-
FIED. The talk of our two subjects may be divided
into two large groups the ego-centric and the socialized.
When a child utters phrases belonging to the first
group, he does not bother to know to whom he is
speaking nor whether he is being listened to. He talks
either for himself or for the pleasure of associating
anyone who happens to be there with the activity of
the moment. This talk is ego-centric, partly because
the child speaks only about himself, but chiefly because
he does not attempt to place himself at the point of
view of his hearer. Anyone who happens to be there
will serve as an audience. The child asks for no more
than an apparent interest, though he has the illusion
(except perhaps in pure soliloquy if even then) of being
heard and understood. He feels no desire to in-
fluence his hearer nor to tell him anything ; not unlike
a certain type of drawing - room conversation where
every one talks about himself and no one listens.
Ego-centric speech may be divided into three categories :
i Repetition (echolalid) : We shall deal only with the
repetition of words and syllables. The child repeats
them for the pleasure of talking, with no thought of
talking to anyone, nor even at times of saying words
that will make sense. This is a remnant of baby prattle,
obviously devoid of any social character.
, 2 Monologue : The child talks to himself as though
he were thinking aloud. He does not address anyone.
3 Dual or collective monologue: The contradiction
contained in the phrase recalls the paradox of those
conversations between children which we were discuss-
ing, where an outsider is always associated with the
action or thought of the moment, but is expected neither
to attend nor to understand. The point of view of the
other person is never taken into account ; his presence
serves only as a stimulus.
In Socialized speech we can distinguish :
4 Adapted information; Here the child really ex-
io STUDIES IN CHILD LOGIC
changes his thoughts with others, either by telling his
hearer something that will interest him and influence
his actions, or by an actual interchange of ideas by
argument or even by collaboration in pursuit of a
common aim.
Adapted information takes place when the child
adopts the point of view of his hearer, and when the
latter is not chosen at random. Collective monologues,
on the other hand, take place when the child talks
only about himself, regardless of his hearers' point of
view, and very often without making sure whether he
is being attended to or understood. We shall examine
this criterion in more detail later on.
5 Criticism : This group includes all remarks made
about the work or behaviour of others, but having the
same character as adapted information ; in other words,
remarks specified in relation to a given audience. But
these are more affective than intellectual, /.., they assert
the superiority of the self and depreciate others. One
might be tempted in view of this to place this group
among the ego-centric categories. But ' egO-centric J
is to be taken in an intellectual, not in an ethical sense,
and there can be no doubt that in the cases under con-
sideration one child acts upon another in a way that
may give rise to arguments, quarrels, and emulation,
whereas the utterances' of the collective monologue are
without any effect upon the person to whom they are
addressed. The shades of distinction, moreover, between
adapted information and criticism are often extremely
subtle and can only be established by the context.
6 Commands, requests and threats: In all of these there
is definite interaction between one child and another.
7 Questions: Most questions asked by children
among themselves call for an answer and can therefore
be classed as socialized speech, with certain reservations
to which we shall draw attention later on.
8 Answers: By these are meant answers to real
questions (with interrogation mark) and to commands.
THE FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE n
They are not to be compared to those answers given
in the course of conversation (categ. 4), to remarks which
are not questions but belong to " information."
These, then, are the eight fundamental categories
of speech. It goes without saying that this classifica-
tion, like any other, is open to the charge of artificiality.
What is more important, however, is that it should
stand the test of practical application, i.e., that any
reader who has made himself familiar with our criteria
should place the same phrases more or less in the same
categories. Four people have been engaged in classi-
fying the material in hand, including that which is
dealt with in the next chapter, and the results of their
respective enquiries were found to coincide within 2 or
3 per cent.
Let us now return to one of these categories in order
to establish the constants of our statistical results.
3. REPETITION (ECHOLALIA). Everyone knows
how, in the first years of his life, a child loves to repeat
the words he hears, to imitate syllables and sounds, even
those of which he hardly understands the meaning. It
is not easy to define the function of this imitation in a
single formula. From the point of view of behaviour,
imitation is, according to Claparede, an ideomotor
adaptation by means of which the child reproduces and
then simulates the movements and ideas of those around
him. But from the point of view of personality and from
the social point of view, imitation would seem to be, as
Janet and Baldwin maintain, a confusion between the
I and the not-I, between the activity of one's own
body and that of other people's bodies. At his most
imitative stage, the child mimics with his whole being,
identifying himself with his model. But this game,
though it seems to imply an essentially social attitude,
really indicates one that is essentially ego-centric. The
copied movements arid behaviour have nothing in them
to interest the child, there is no adaptation of the
I to anyone else; there is a confusion by which the
12 STUDIES IN CHILD LOGIC
child does not know that he is imitating, but plays his
game as though it were his own creation. This is why
children up to the age of 6 or 7, when they have had
something explained to them and are asked to do it
immediately afterwards, invariably imagine that they
have discovered by themselves what in reality they are
only repeating from a model. In such cases imitation
is completely unconscious, as we have often had occasion
to observe.
This mental disposition constitutes a fringe on the
child's activity, which persists throughout different ages,
changing in contents but always identical in function.
At the ages of our two children, many of the remarks
collected partake of the nature of pure repetition or
echolalia. The part played by this echolalia is simply
that of a game ; the child enjoys repeating the words
for their own sake, for the pleasure they give him,
without any external adaptation and without an
audience. Here are a few typical examples :
(Mile E. teaches My the word 6 celluloid') Lev,
busy with his drawing at another table: " Lulo'id. . .
le le loid . . ." etc.
(Before an aquarium Pie stands outside the group
and takes no interest in what is being shown. Some-
body says the word ' triton J ). Pie: "Triton . . .
triton" Lev (after hearing the clock strike coucou ') :
" Coucou . . . coucou."
These pure repetitions, rare enough at the age of
Pie and Lev, have no interest for us. Their sudden
appearance in the midst of ordinary conversation is
more illuminating.
Jac says to Ez : " Look, Ez, your pants are showing."
Pie, who is in another part of the room immediately
repeats : " Look, my pants are showing, and my shirt , too."
Now there is not a word of truth in all this. It is
simply the joy of repeating for its own sake that makes
Pie talk in this way, i.e.) the pleasure of using words
THE FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE 13
?;">
not for the sake of adapting oneself to the conversation,
but for the sake of playing with them.
We have seen on page 7 the example of Pie hearing
Lev say: "A funny gentleman," and repeating this
remark for his own* amusement although he is busy
drawing a tram-car (27). This shows how little repeti-
tion distracts Pie from his class-work. (Ez. says: "I
want to ride on the train up there "), Pie: "/ want to
ride on the train up there."
There is no need to multiply examples. The process
is always the same. The children are occupied with
drawing or playing ; they all talk intermittently with-
out listening very much to each other ; but words
thrown out are caught on the bounce, like balls.
Sometimes they are repeated as they are, like the
remarks of the present category, sometimes they set
in action those dual monologues of which we shall
speak later on.
The frequency of repetition is about 2% and i%
for Pie and Lev respectively. If the talk be divided
into sections of 100 sentences, then in each hundred
will be found repetitions in the proportion of i%, 4%,
o%, 5% 3%, etc.
4. MONOLOGUE. Janet and the psycho-analysts
have shown us how close in their opinion is the bond
which originally connected word and action, words
oeing so packed with concrete significance that the
mere fact of uttering them, even without any reference
to action, could be looked upon as the factor in initiating
the action in question.
Now, independently of the question of origins, it is
a matter of common observation that for the child words
are much nearer to action and movement than for us.
This leads us to two results which are of considerable
importance in the study of child language in general
and of the monologue in particular. i The child is
impelled, even when he is alone, to speak as he acts,
to accompany his movements with a play of shouts and
i 4 STUDIES IN CHILD LOGIC
words. True, there are silences, and very curious ones
at that, when children work together as in the Maison
des Petits. But, alongside of these silences, how many
a soliloquy must take place when a child is alone in a
room, or when children speak without addressing them-
selves to anyone, 2 If the child talks even when he is
alone as an accompaniment to his action, he can reverse
the process and use words to bring about what the
action of itself is powerless to do. Hence the habit of
romancing or inventing, which consists in creating
reality by words and magical language, in working on
things by means of words alone, apart from any contact
either with them or with persons.
These two varieties belong to the same category, that
of the monologue. It is worth noting that the mono-
logue still plays an important part between the ages of
6 and 7. At this age the child soliloquizes even
in the society of other children, as in the class-rooms
where our work has been carried on. We have some-
times seen as many as ten children seated at separate
tables or in groups of two or three, each talking to
himself without taking any notice of his neighbour.
Here are a few examples of simple monologue (the
first variety) where the child simply accompanies his
action with sentences spoken aloud.
Lev sits down at his table alone : " / tvant to do that
drawing^ there . . . / want to draw something \ I do. I
shall need a big piece of paper to do that"
Lev knocks over a game : l ' There ! everything's fallen
down"
Lev has just finished his drawing : "Now I want to
do something else"
Lev is a little fellow who is very much wrapped up
in himself. He is always telling every one else what he
is doing at the moment. In his case, therefore, mono-
logue tends in the direction of collective monologue,
where every one talks about himself without listening to
the others. All the same, when he is alone he goes
THE FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE 15
on announcing what he is going to do, with no other
audience than himself. It is in these circumstances that
we have the true monologue.
In the case of Pie, the monologue is rarer, but more
true to type ; the child will often talk with the sole aim
of marking the rhythm of his action, without exhibiting a
shade of self-satisfaction in the process. Here is one of
Pie's conversations with context, where monologue is
interspersed with other forms of talk :
53. Pie takes his arithmetic copy-book and turns the
pages : "1, 2 . . . 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 . . . 8 . . . 9, I'm doing 9, I'm doing 9. (He draws).
55. (Mile. L. passes by his table without saying any-
thing). Look, teacher j 9, 9, 9 . . . number 9.
56. (He goes to the frame to see what colour to choose
for his number so that it should correspond to the gth
row in the frame). Pink chalk^ it will have to be 9. (He
sings).
57. (To Ez as he passes) : Pm doing 9, I am (Ez)
What are you going to do? Little rounds.
58. (Accident to the pencil) Ozv, ow !
59. Now Pve got to 9."
The whole of this monologue has no further aim than
to accompany the action as it takes place. There are
only two diversions. Pie would like to inform someone
about his plans (sentences 55 and 57). But in spite of
this the monologue runs on uninterrupted as though
Pie were alone in the room. Speech in this case
functions only as a stimulus, and in nowise as a means
of communication. Pie no doubt enjoys the feeling of
being in a room full of people, but if he were alone, his
remarks would be substantially the same.
At the same time it is obvious that this stimulus
contains a certain danger. Although in some cases it
16 STUDIES IN CHILD LOGIC
accelerates action, it also runs the risk of supplanting
it. "When the distance between two points has to
be traversed, a man can actually walk it with his legs*
but he can also stand still and shout: 'On, on ! . . :'
like an opera singer." 1 Hence the second variety of
child soliloquy where speech serves not so much to
accompany and accelerate action as to replace it by an
illusory satisfaction. To this last group belong certain
cases of word magic ; but these, frequent as they are,
occur only in the strictest solitude. 2 What is more
usual is that the child takes so much pleasure in solilo-
quizing that he forgets his activity and does nothing
but talk. The word then becomes a command .to the
external world. Here is an example of pure and of
collective monologue (cf. next chapter) where the child
gradually works himself up into issuing a command
to physical objects and to animals :
" Now then, it's coming (a tortoise). Ifs coming, ifs
coming^ its coming. Get out of the way, Da, ifs coming,
ifs coming, ifs coming. . . . Come along, tortoise /"
A little later, after having watched the aquarium,
soliloquizing all the time : " Oh, isn't it (a salamander)
surprised at the great big giant (a fish)," he exclaims,
" Salamander, you must eat up the fishes / "
In short we have here the mechanism of solitary
games, where, after thinking out his action aloud, the
child, under the influence of verbal excitement as much
as of any voluntary illusion, comes to command both
animate and inanimate beings.
In conclusion, the general characteristic of mono-
logues of this category is that the words have no
social function. In such cases speech does not com-
municate the thoughts of the speaker, it serves to
accompany, to reinforce, or to supplement his action.
It may be said that this is simply a side-tracking of
the original function of language, and that the child
1 P. Janet, loc. cit., p. 150.
2 These cases will be dealt with elsewhere.
THE FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE 17
commands himself and external things just as he has
learned to command and speak to others. There can
be no doubt that without originally imitating others
and without the desire to call his parents and to
influence them, the child would probably never learn
to talk ; in a sense, then, the monologue is due only to
a return shock of words acquired in relation to other
people. It should be remembered, however, that
throughout the^time when he is learning to speak, the
child is constantly the victim of a confusion between
his own point of view and that of other people. For
one thing, he does not know that he is imitating.
For another, he talks as much to himself as to others,
as much for the pleasure of prattling or of perpetuating
some past state of being as for the sake of giving orders.
It is therefore impossible to say that the monologue
is either prior to or later than the more socialized forms
of language ; both spring from that undifferentiated
state where cries and words accompany action, and
then tend to prolong it ; and both react one upon the
other at the very outset of their development.
But as we pass from early childhood to the adult
stage, we shall naturally see the gradual disappearance
of the monologue, for it is a primitive and infantile
function of language. It is remarkable in this con-
nexion that in the cases of Pie and Lev this form
should still constitute about 5% and 15% respectively
of their total conversation. This percentage is con-
siderable when the conditions in which the material
was collected are taken into account. The difference
in the percentages, however, corresponds to a marked
difference in temperament, Pie being of a more practical
disposition than Lev, better adapted to reality and
therefore to the society of other children. When he
speaks, it is therefore generally in order to make him-
self heard. It is true, as we saw, that when Pie does
talk to himself his monologue is on the whole more
genuine than Lev's, but Pie does not produce in such
B
i8 STUDIES IN CHILD LOGIC
abundance those rather self-satisfied remarks in which
a child is continually announcing his plans to himself,
and which are the obvious sign of a certain imaginative
exuberance.
5. COLLECTIVE MONOLOGUE. This form is the
most social of the ego-centric varieties of child language,
since to the pleasure of talking it adds that of solilo-
quizing before others and of interesting, or thinking
to interest, them in one's own action and one's own
thoughts. But as we have already pointed out, the
child who acts in this manner does not succeed in
making his audience listen, because, as a matter of fact,
he is not really addressing himself to it. He is not
speaking to anyone. He talks aloud to himself in
front of others. This way of behaving reappears in
certain men and women of a puerile disposition (certain
hysterical subjects, if hysteria be described as the sur-
vival of infantile characteristics) who are in the habit
of thinking aloud as though they were talking to
themselves, but are also conscious of their audience.
Suppress the slightly theatrical element in this attitude,
and you have the equivalent of the collective monologue
in normal children.
The examples of i should now be re-read if we
wish to realize how socially ineffectual is this form of
language, z.., how little impression it makes upon the
person spoken to. Pie makes the same remark to
two different persons (25 and 26), and is in nowise
astonished when he is neither listened to nor answered
by either of them. Later on he asks Bea twice, " What
did you say?" (31 and 32), but without listening to
her. He busies himself with his own idea and his
drawing, and talks only about himself.
Here are a few more examples which show how
little a child is concerned with speaking to anyone in
particular, or even with making himself heard :
Mile L. tells a group of children that owls cannot
see by day. Lev : " Well> I know quite well that it carit"
THE FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE 19
Lev (at a table where a group is at work): cc I've
already done ' moon ' so I'll have to change it"
Lev picks up some barley-sugar crumbs: "/ say,
Pve got a lovely pile of eye-glasses"
Lev : " / say, I've got a gun to kill him with. I say, I
am the captain on horseback. I say, I've got a horse and
a gun as well."
The opening phrase, "I say, I" which occurs in
most of these sentences is significant. Every one is
supposed to be listening. This is what distinguishes
this type of remark from pure monologue. But with
regard to its contents it is the exact equivalent of the
monologue. The child is simply thinking out his actions
aloud, with no desire to give anyone any information
about it,
We shall find in the next chapter examples of collective
monologues no longer isolated or chosen from the talk
of two children only, but taken down verbatim from
all-round conversations. This particular category need
not therefore occupy us any longer.
The collective monologue represents about 23% of
Lev's and 30% of Pie's entire conversation. But we
have seen that it is harder to distinguish the pure
from the collective monologue in Lev's case than in
Pie's. Taking therefore the two types of monologue
together, we may say that with Lev they represent
38%, and with Pie 35% of the subject's sum of conversa-
tion.
6. ADAPTED INFORMATION. The criterion of
adapted information, as opposed to the pseudo-informa-
tion contained in the collective monologue, is that it is
successful. The child actually makes his hearer listen,
and contrives to influence him, i.e., to tell him some-
thing. This time the child speaks from the point of
view of his audience. The function of language is
no longer merely to excite the speaker to action, but
actually to communicate his thoughts to other people.
These criteria, however, are difficult of application, and
20 STUDIES IN CHILD LOGIC
we shall try to discover some that admit of greater
precision.
It is adapted information, moreover, that gives rise
to dialogue. The dialogues of children deserve to be
made the object of a special and very searching investi-
gation, for it is probably through the habit of arguing
that, as Janet and Baldwin have insisted, we first
become conscious of the rules of logic and the forms
of deductive reasoning. We shall therefore attempt in
the next chapter to give a rough outline of the different
stages of conversation as it takes place between children.
In the meantime we shall content ourselves with ex-
amining adapted information (whether it takes place in
dialogue or not) in relation to the main body of talk
indulged in by our two subjects, and with noting how
small is the part played by this form of language in
comparison to the ego-centric forms and those socialized
forms of speech such as commands, threats, criticisms,
etc., which are not connected with mere statement of
fact.
The form in which adapted information first presents
itself to us, is that of simple information. Here are a
few clear examples :
Lev is helping Geo to play Lotto : " / think that goes
here.''" Geo points to a duplicate card. Lev: " If you
lose one> there will still be one left" Then : " You^ve got
three of the same" or : " You all see what you have to do"
Mile R. calls Ar ' Roger/ Pie: "He isn't called
Roger."
Such remarks as these are clearly very different from
dual monologues. The child's object is definitely to
convey something to his hearer. It is from the latter's
point of view that the subject speaks, and no longer
from his own. Henceforward the child lays claim to
be understood, and presses his claim if he does not
gain his point ; whereas in the collective monologue
words were thrown out at random, and it little mattered
where they fell.
THE FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE 21
In adapted information the child can naturally talk
about himself as about any other subject of conversa-
tion. All that is needed is that his remarks should be
6 adapted ' as in the following examples :
Ez and Pie : " I shall have one to-morrow (a season-
ticket on the tramway) I shall have mine this afternoon"
Ez and Pie are building a church with bricks :
" We could do that with parallels too. I want to put the
parallels on^
We are now in a position to define more closely
the distinction between the collective monologue and
adapted information. The collective monologue takes
place whenever the child talks about himself, except
in those cases where he does so during collaboration
with his hearer (as in the example just given of the
church building game), and except in cases of dialogue.
Dialogue, in our view, occurs when the child who has
been spoken to in a proposition, answers by talking
about something that was treated of in this proposition
(as in the example of the tramway season-ticket), and
does not start off on some cock-and-bull story as so
often happens in collective monologue. 1
In conclusion, as soon as the child informs his hearer
about anything but himself, or as soon as in speaking
of himself, he enters into collaboration or simply, into
dialogue with his hearer, there is adapted information.
So long as the child talks about himself without collab-
orating with his audience or without evoking a dialogue,
there is only collective monologue.
These definitions and the inability of collective mono-
logue to draw others into the speakers sphere of action
render it all the more remarkable that with Pie and
Lev adapted information numbers only half as many
remarks as collective monologue. Before establishing'
the exact proportion we must find out what sort of
things our two subjects tell each other, and what they
1 For such cock-and-bull stories, see p. 7, sentence 30.
22 STUDIES IN CHILD LOGIC
argue about on those rare occasions when we can talk
of arguments taking place between children.
On the first point we may note the complete absence
between the children of anything in the nature of
explanation, if by this word we mean causal explana-
tion, i.e.> an answer of the form " for such a reason"
to the question "why?" All the observed cases of
information which might be thought to resemble ex-
planation are statements of fact or descriptions, and are
free from any desire to explain the causes of phenomena.
Here are examples of information which simply state
or describe :
Lev and Pie: "Thafs 420." "It isn't 10 o'clock."
"A roof doesn't look like that" (talking of a drawing).
" This is a village , a great big village," etc.
Even when they talk about natural phenomena, the
information they give each other never touches on
causality.
Lev : " Thunder rolls No, it doesn't roll It's water
No it doesn't roll What is thunder? Thunder is . . ."
(He doesn't go on.)
This absence of causal explanations is remarkable,
especially in the case of machines, motors, bicycles,
etc., which the subjects occasionally discuss, but always
from what we may call the factual point of view.
Lev: "It's on the same rail. Funny sort of cart, a
motor cart A bicycle for two men"
Now each of these children taken separately is able
to explain the mechanism of a bicycle. Pie does so
imperfectly, but Lev does so quite well. Each has a
number of ideas on mechanics, but they never discuss
them together. Causal relations remain unexpressed
and are thought about only by the individual, probably
because, to the child mind they are represented by
images rather than by words. Only the underlying
factual element finds expression
THE FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE 23
This peculiarity comes out very clearly when children
collaborate in a game.
Here for instance are Pie and Ez occupied in drawing
a house together. Pie : " You must have a little button
there for the light, a little button for the light . . . Now
Pm doing the 'lectric light . . . There are two 'lectric
lights. Look we'll have two 'lectric lights. These are all
squares of*lectric lights"
We shall have occasion in later chapters to confirm
our hypothesis that the causal * why ' hardly enters
into child conversation. We shall see, particularly in
Chapter III, that the explanations elicited from one
child by another between the ages of 6 and 8 are
for the most part imperfectly understood in so far as they
seem to express any sort of causal relation. Questions
of causality are therefore confined to conversations
between children and adults, or to those between younger
and older children. Which is the same thing as saying
that most of these questions are kept hidden away by
the child in the fastness of his intimate and unformulated
thought.
Here are those of the remarks exchanged by Lev and
Pie which approach most nearly to causal explanation.
It will be seen that they are almost entirely descriptive :
Lev : " We ought to have a little water. This green
paint is so very hard, most awfully hard " . . . "In card-
boar d> don't you know ? You dorft know how to> but it is
rather difficult for you , it is for every one! 1
Childish arguments, it is curious to note, present
exactly the same features. Just as our two subjects
never communicate their thoughts on the why and
wherefore of phenomena, so in arguing they never
support their statements with the < because J and < since '
of logic. For them, with two exceptions only, arguing
consists simply in a clash of affirmations, without any
attempt at logical justification. It belongs to the type
24 STUDIES IN CHILD LOGIC
which we shall denote as " primitive argument " in our
essay in the following chapter on the different stages of
child conversation, and which we shall characterize by
just this lack of motivation.
The example given on page 22 (the argument between
Lev and a child of the same age about thunder) proves
this very clearly. Here are three more examples, the
first two quite definite, the third of a more intermediate
character.
Ez to Pie: " You're going to marry me Pie: No, I
won't marry you Oh yes you'll marry me No Yes
ptr "
* CLO.
" Look how lovely my 6 is going to be Lev : Yes it's
a 6 but really and truly ifs a g No, it's a 6, Nought
You said nought, and ifs not true, ifs a 9. Really it is
No Yes It was done like that already Oh no, thafs
a lie. You silly "
Lev looks to see what Hei is doing: " Two moons
No, two suns. Suns aren't like that, with a mouth.
They're like this, suns up there They're round Yes
they're quite round, but they haven't got eyes and a mouth.
Yes they have, they can see No they can't. Ifs only
God who can see"
In the first two examples the argument is simply a
clash of contrary affirmations, without mutual conces-
sions and without motivation. The last is more complex.
When Lev says "Ifs only God who can see ..." or
" They are like this", he does seem at the first glance to
be justifying his remarks, to be doing something more
than merely stating facts. But there is no explicit
justification, no attempt to demonstrate. Hei asserts
and Lev denies. Hei makes no effort to give any
reasons for believing that the sun has eyes, he does
not say that he has seen pictures which have led him
to such an idea, etc. Lev for his part does not attempt
to get at Hei's point of view, and gives no explicit
reason for defending his own. In the main then there
is still only a clash of assertions, different enough from
THE FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE 25
the two following little arguments, one of which, by the
way, takes place between a child and an adult.
These indeed are the only examples we have found
where the child tries to prove his assertions. They
should be carefully examined, considering how seldom
the fact occurs before the age of 7 or 8.
Lev talking to Mile G. : " You've been eating paint
No, I haven't, which? White paint No Oh> yes you
have 'cos theris some on your mouth"
The reader will note the correct use made of * be-
cause' at the age of 6J. In the three lists of complete
vocabularies given by Mile Descoeudres 1 * because* is
used by the seven-year-old but not by the five-year-old
child.
Here is another instance, again of Lev: " That is
420 But it's not the number of the house Why not?
The number of the house is on the door."
Note here the use of 'why' in the sense of "for
what reason" (cf. Chapter V). The reader will see
how superior these two arguments are to the preceding
examples.
We can draw the following conclusions from these
various facts :
i Adapted information, together with most of the
questions and answers which we shall examine later,
constitute the only categories of child language whose
function, in contrast to the divers functions of the
ego-centric categories, is to communicate intellectual
processes.
2 The frequency of adapted information is only
13% for Lev and 14% for Pie, a remarkable fact, and
one which shows how little the intellectual enquiry
of a child can be said to be social. These figures
are all the more striking when we remember that
1 A. Descoeudres, "Le developpement de 1' enfant de deux a sept ans,"
Coll. Actual. Fed., 1922, p. 190.
26 STUDIES IN CHILD LOGIC
collective monologue constitutes respectively 23% and
30% of the sum of the remarks made by the same
subjects.
3 These informations conveyed from one child to
another are factual in the sense that they do not point
to any causal relations, even when they deal with the
material used by the children in their work and with
the numerous objects, natural or artificial, which they
like to draw or build (animals, stars, motor-cars,
bicycles, etc.).
4 The arguments between the two children are, with
two exceptions only, of a low type, inasmuch as they
consist merely of a clash of contrary assertions without
any explicit demonstration.
7. CRITICISM AND DERISION. If we set aside ques-
tions and answers, the socialized language of the child
in its non-intellectual aspect may be divided into two
easily distinguishable categories : on the one hand com-
mands, on the other criticism and derision. There is
nothing peculiar about these categories in children ;
only their percentage is interesting.
Here are a few examples of criticisms, taunts, Schaden-
freude, etc., which at the first glance one might be
tempted to place under information and dialogue, but
which it will perhaps be found useful to class apart.
Their function is not to convey thoughts, but to satisfy
non-intellectual instincts such as pugnacity, pride,
emulation, etc. :
Lev : < * You're not putting it in the middle " (a plate on
the table). " That's not fair? "Pooh! that's no good!'
" We made that house, it isnt theirs? " Thafs not like an
owl Look, Pie, what he's done'' " Well, I know that he
can't? "Ifs much prettier than ours." a Tve got a much
bigger pencil than you'' " Well, I'm the strongest all the
same," etc.
All these remarks have this in common with adapted
information that they are addressed to a specified person
whom they influence, rouse to emulation and provoke
THE FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE 27
to retort and even to quarrelling. This is what obliges
us to class as socialized language such remarks as those
towards the end, beginning : " Well, I," which in other
respects resemble collective monologue. What, on the
other hand, distinguishes these phrases from information
proper, is that with the child even apparently objective
criticisms contain judgments of value which retain a
strongly subjective flavour. They are not mere state-
ments of fact. They contain elements of derision, of
combativeness, and of the desire to assert personal
superiority. They therefore justify the creation of a
separate category.
The percentage of this group is low : 3% for Lev,
and 7% for Pie. This may be a question of individual
types, and if this category is too weakly represented in
subsequent research, we may have to assimilate it to one
of the preceding ones.
8. COMMANDS, REQUESTS, THREATS. Why is the
ratio of adapted information so low in comparison to
that of the ego-centric forms of speech, particularly in
comparison to collective monologue? The reason is
quite simple. I The child does not in the first instance
communicate with his fellow-beings in order to share
thoughts and reflexions ; he does so in order to play.
The result is that the part played by intellectual inter-
change is reduced to the strictly necessary minimum.
The rest of language will only assist action, and will
consist of commands, etc.
Commands and threats, then, like criticisms, deserve
a category to themselves. They are, moreover, very
easy to recognize :
Lev (outside a shop) : " Mustrit come in here without
paying* I shall tell G/" (if you come). " Come here
Mr Passport" " Give me the blue one" " You must -make
a flag" " Come along, Ro. Look . . . you shall be the
cart" etc.
Pie : " E%) come and see the salamander" " Get out of
the way, I shan't be able to see" etc. (About a roof) : " No,
take it away, take it away ''cos I want to put on mine" etc.
28 STUDIES IN CHILD LOGIC
We need not labour the point. The only distinction
calling for delicate discrimination is that between requests
which tend imperceptably to become commands, and
questions which contain an implicit request. All requests
which are not expressed in interrogative form we shall
agree to call ' entreaties/ and shall include in the present
category ; while for interrogative requests a place will
be reserved in our next category. Here are some
examples of entreaty :
Lev : " The yellow paint \ please" " / should like some
water? etc.
Pie : " The india-rubber, teacher , / want the india-rubber"
Under requests, on the other hand, we shall classify
such sentences as: " Ez, do you mind helping me?"
"May I look at it?" etc. This distinction is certainly
artificial. But between an interrogative request and a
question bearing on immediate action there are many
intermediate types. And since it is desirable to dis-
tinguish between questions and commands, we must not
be afraid of facing the artificiality of our classification.
So long as we are agreed upon the conventions adopted,
and do not take the statistics too literally, the rest need
not detain us. It is not, moreover, the ratio of commands
to orders that will be of most use to us, but the ratio of
the bulk of socialized language to the bulk of ego-centric
language. It is easy enough to agree upon these funda-
mental distinctions.
The percentage of the present category is 10%
for Lev and 15% for Pie. Dialogue and inform-
ation were for the same subjects respectively, 12%
and 14%.
9. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. A preliminary diffi-
culty presents itself in connexion with these two
categories which we propose to treat of together : do
they both belong to socialized language? As far as
answers are concerned, we need be in no doubt. Indeed,
we shall describe as an ( answer ' the adapted words used
THE FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE 29
by the person spoken to, after he has heard and under-
stood a question. For instance :
"What colour is that? (Lev) Brownish yellow"
" What are you doing, Lev? The boat" etc.
To answers we shall assimilate refusals and accept-
ances, which are answers given not to questions of fact
but to commands and requests :
"Will you give it back to me? (the ticket). No y I
don't need it. Pm in the boat" (Lev).
These two groups, which together constitute answers,
obviously belong to socialized language. If we place
them in a separate category instead of assimilating
them to adapted information, it is chiefly because
answers do not belong to the spontaneous speech of the
child. It would be sufficient for his neighbours to
interrupt him and for adults to question him all the
time, to raise a child's socialized language to a much
higher percentage. We shall therefore eliminate
answers from our calculations in the following para-
graph. All remarks provoked by adults will thus be
done away with. Answers, moreover, constitute only
1 8% of Lev's language and 14% of Pie's.
The psychological contents of answers are highly
interesting, and would alone suffice to render the
category distinct from information. It is of course
closely connected to the contents of the question, and
we shall therefore deal simultaneously with the two
problems.
And the questions which children ask one another
do they too belong to socialized language? Curiously
enough the point is one that can be raised, for many
remarks are made by children in an interrogative form
without being in any way questions addressed to any-
one. The proof of this is that the child does not listen
to the answer, and does not even expect it. He supplies
it himself. This happens frequently between the ages
30 STUDIES IN CHILD LOGIC
of 3 and 5. At the age of our two subjects it is
rarer. When such pseudo-questions do occur, we have
classed them as monologue or information (e.g. " Please*
teacher is half right ? Yes, look " Lev). For the present
we shall therefore deal only with questions proper.
Questions make up 17% of Lev's language and
13% of Pie's. Their importance is therefore equal
and even superior to that of information, and since
a question is a spontaneous search for information,
we shall now be able to check the accuracy of our
assertions concerning this last category. Two of its
characteristics were particularly striking : the absence
of intellectual intercourse among the children on the
subject of causality, and the absence of proof and
logical justification in their discussions. If we jump
to the conclusion that children keep such thoughts
to themselves and do not socialize them, we may be
met with the counter assertion that children simply do
not have such thoughts, in which case there would be
no question of their socializing them ! This is partly
the case as regards logical demonstration. With
regard to causal explanation, however and by this
we mean not only the appeal to mechanical causality
such as is made only after the ages of 7 or 8 (see
Chapter V, 3), but also the appeal to final, or as we
shall call it, to pre-causality, z.., that which is invoked
in the child's * whys ' between the ages of 3 and 7
to 8 as regards this type of explanation, then, there
are two things to be noted. In the first place, the children
of the Maison des Petits deal in their drawings and free
compositions with animals, physical objects (stars, sky,
rain, etc.), with machines and manufactured objects
(trains, motors, boats, houses, bicycles, etc.). These
might therefore give rise to questions of origin and
causality. In the second place, * whys' play an
important part in all questions asked of grown-ups
by children under 7 (cf. p. 284 where out of three
groups of 250 spontaneous questions we noted respec-
THE FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE 31
tively 91, 53 and 41 * whys'). Now among these
'whys' a large number are "whys of explanation,"
meaning "for what reason" or "for what object."
Explanation supplies about 18% of the subject-matter
dealt with in the questions of the child of 6 or 7,
such as we shall study it in Chapter V. If, there-
fore, there are few questions of explanation in the
talk of our two present subjects, this is strongly in
favour of the interpretation we have given of information
and dialogue between children in general. Intellectual
intercourse between children is still factual or descriptive,
/.&, little concerned with causality, which remains the
subject of conversation between children and adults or
of the child's own solitary reflexion.
The facts seem to bear this out. Only 3 out of Pie's
173 questions are 'whys.' Out of Lev's 224 questions
only 10 are ' whys '. Of these, only two ' whys ' of Lev's
are "whys of explanation." 1
" Why has he turned round?" (a stuffed owl which
Lev believes to be alive), and " Why has he turned round
a little?" (the same).
The rest are ' whys ' not of causal but of psychological
explanation, ' intentions ' as we shall call them, 2 which
is quite another matter :
"Why did he say : 'Hullo Lev* ?" "Why was Rey
crying" ? " " Why has he gone away ? " etc.
In addition to these we have one " logical why " from
Lev, that which we dealt with in connexion with the
discussion on page 25. It is clear how rarely children
ask each other 'why?', and how little such questions
have to do with causality.
Thus out of the 224 questions asked by Lev and the
173 asked by Pie only two are about explanation, and
those two both come from Lev. All the rest can be
divided as follows. First of all, we have 141 questions
1 For the definition of this term, see Chapter V. 2 Id.
32 STUDIES IN CHILD LOGIC
of Lev's and 78 of Pie's about children's activities as
such, about " actions and intentions" : l
Lev: "And my scissors, can you see them?" "Are
we going to play at Indians ?" " Pm working, are you ? "
" / didn't hurt you, did I?" "Do you know that gentle-
man?" "How shall I paint the house?" "How does
this go?" (d ball in the counting-frame).
Pie : "Are you coming this afternoon, Bea ?" "I say,
have you finished yet ? " etc.
This enormous numerical difference between the
questions bearing upon children's activity as such, and
those dealing with causal explanation is very remark-
able. 5j[t proves how individualistic the child of 6
still shows himself to be in his intellectual activity,
and how restricted in consequence is the interchange
of ideas that takes place between children.!
A second category of questions, made up of 27 of
Lev's and 41 of Pie's, deals with facts and events, time
and place (questions of ( reality ' treated of in Chapter V).
Facts : "Is your drum closed? " "Is there some paper,
too ?" "Are there snails in there ? " (Pie.)
Place: "Where is the blue, Ez?" "Where is she?"
(the tortoise).
Time: "Please teacher, is it late?" "How old are
you ? " (Pie.)
It will be seen that these questions do not touch upon
causality, but are^all about matters of fact Questions
of place predominate in this category, 29 for Pie and
13 for Lev.
Another numerous category (51 for Pie, 48 for Lev)
is made up of questions purely concerning matters of
fact, questions of nomenclature, classification and
evaluation.
Nomenclature : " What does * behind ' mean ?" " What
is he called? " (a cook) (Lev).
Classification: "What ever is that?" "Is that
yellow ? " (Lev).
Evaluation: " Is it pretty ?" (Lev, Pie).
1 See Chapter V.
THE FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE
33
We may add a few questions about number (5 by
Lev, i by Pie) :
"Isn't all that enough for zfr.$o ?" " And how much
for n?" (Lev).
Finally, mention should be made of two questions
by Pie and one by Lev about rules (writing, etc.).
" You put it on this side, dorit you?" (the figure 3)
(Lev).
The following table completely summarizes the ques-
tions asked by Lev and Pie, including their < whys/
Questions of causal explanation .
Questions of ! Facts and events '
Actions and intentions
Rules
Questions of / Nomenclature
Classification! Classification and evaluation
Number
TOTAL
LEV
PIE
2
2
141
o
o
4i
78
7
7
13
8
4
29
I
...
2
7
48
5
o
51
7
224
173
We shall not dwell upon the criteria of the different
categories nor upon their functional interest ; these
problems form the subject-matter of a later chapter on
" A child's questions " (Chapter V). It will be enough
if we conclude from this table that questions from one
child to another (questions from children to adults play
only a negligible part in this group), bear first and
foremost upon actual psychological activity (actions
and intentions). Otherwise, when they concern objects
34 STUDIES IN CHILD LOGIC
and not persons, they bear upon the factual aspect of
reality, and not upon causal relations. These con-
clusions are markedly different from the results supplied
by Del (Chapter V: Questions of a child to an adult).
Before drawing any conclusions, however, from the
difference between questions from child to child and
questions from child to adult, we should have to solve
a big preliminary problem : how far do the questions
which Lev and Pie ask adults out of school hours
resemble those of Del (whys of explanation, etc.) ? At
the first glance, Del, although he has worked like the
others during school hours, seems to approximate much
more closely to what we know of the ordinary question- -
ing child of 6. But Lev and Pie are perhaps special
types, more prone to statement and less to explanation.
All we can do, therefore, is to extend the work of
research as carried out in this chapter and in Chapter V.
II. CONCLUSIONS
Having defined, so far as was possible the various
categories of the language used by our two children, it
now remains for us to see whether it is not possible to
establish certain numerical constants from the material
before us. We wish to emphasize at the very outset
the artificial character of such abstractions. The number
of unclassifiable remarks, indeed, weighs heavily in the
statistics. In any case, a perusal of the list of Lev's
first 50 remarks, which we shall give as an example for
those who wish to make use of our method, should give
a fair idea of the degree of objectivity belonging to our
classification. 1 But these difficulties are immaterial.
If among our results some are definitely more constant
than others, then we shall feel justified in attributing
to these a certain objective value.
10. THE MEASURE OF EGO-CENTRISM. Among the
data we have obtained there is one, incidentally of the
1 See Appendix.
THE FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE 35
greatest interest for the 'study of child logic, which
seems to supply the necessary guarantee of objectivity :
we mean the proportion of ego-centric language to
the sum of the child's spontaneous conversation.
Ego-centric language is, as we have seen, the group
made up by the first three of the categories we have
enumerated repetition, monologue and collective mono-
logue. All three have this in common that they con-
sist of remarks that are not addressed to anyone, or
not to anyone in particular, and that they evoke no
reaction adapted to them on the part of anyone to
whom they may chance to be addressed. Spontaneous
language is therefore made up of the first seven cate-
gories, i.e., of all except answers. It is therefore the sum
total of all remarks, minus those which are made as an
answer to a question asked by an adult or a child. We
have eliminated this heading as being subject to chance
circumstances ; it is sufficient for a child to have come
in contact with many adults or with some talkative com-
panion, to undergo a marked change in the percentage
of his answers. Answers given, not to definite questions
(with interrogation mark) or commands, but in the
course of the dialogue, i.e., propositions answering to
other 'propositions, have naturally been classed under
the heading information and .dialogue, so that there is
nothing artificial about the omission of questions from
the statistics which we shall give. The child's language
minus his answers constitutes a complete whole in
which intelligence is represented at every stage of its
development.
The proportion of ego-centric to other spontaneous
forms of language is represented by the following
fractions :
= o-47for Lev, = o.43 for Pie.
(The proportion of ego-centric language to the sum
total of the subject's speech, including answers, is 39% for
36 STUDIES IN CHILD LOGIC
Lev and 37% for Pie.) The similarity of result for Lev
and Pie is a propitious sign, especially as what differ-
ence there is corresponds to a marked difference of
temperament. (Lev is certainly more ego-centric than
Pie.) But the value of the result is vouched for in yet
another way.
If we divide the 1400 remarks made by Lev during
the month in which his talk was being studied into
sections of 100 sentences, and seek to establish for each
section the ratio ^' ", the fraction will be found to
op. jL.
vary only from 0*40 to 0*57, which indicates only a
small maximum deviation. On the contrary, the mean
variation , i.e., the average of the deviations between each
value and the arithmetical average of these values, is
only 0*04, which is really very little.
If Pie's 1500 remarks are submitted to the same treat-
ment, the proportions will be found to vary between
0*31 and 0*59, with an average variation of 0*06. This
greater variability is just what we should expect from
what we know of Pie's character, which at first sight
seems more practical, better adapted than Lev's, more
inclined to collaboration (particularly with his bosom
friend Ez). But Pie every now and then indulges in
fantasies which isolate him for several hours, and
during which he soliloquizes without ceasing.
We shall see in the next chapter, moreover, that
these two coefficients do actually represent the average
for children between the ages of 7 and 8. The same
calculation based on some 1500 remarks in quite another
class-room yielded the result of 0*45 (a. v. = 0*05).
This constancy in the proportion of ego-centric
language is the more remarkable in view of the fact
that we have found nothing of the kind in connexion
with the other coefficients which we have sought to
establish. We have, it is true, determined the pro-
portion of socialized factual language (information and
questions) to socialized non-factual language (criticism,
THE FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE 37
commands, and requests). But this proportion fluctuates
from 072 to 2*23 with a mean variation 0*71 for Lev
(as compared with 0*04 and 0*06 as the coefficients of
ego-centrism), and between 0*43 and 2*33 with a mean
variation of 0*42 for Pie, Similarly, the relation of
ego-centric to socialized factual language yields no
coefficient of any constancy.
Of all this calculation let us bear only this in mind,
that our two subjects of 6J have each an ego-centric
language which amounts to nearly half of their total
spontaneous speech.
The following table summarizes the functions of the
language used by both these children :
Pie Lev
1 Repetition 2 i
2 Monologue 5 15
3 Collective Monologue ... 30 23
4 Adapted Information .... 14 13
5 Criticism 7 3
6 Commands 15 10
7 Requests 13 17
8 Answers 14 18
Ego-centric Language 37 39
Spontaneous Socialized language . 49 43
Sum of Socialized language . 63 ' 61
Coefficient of Ego-centrism . . 0*43 + 0*06 0*47 + 0*04
We must once more emphasize the fact that in all
these calculations the number of remarks made by
children to adults is negligible. By omitting them we
raise the coefficient of ego-centrism to about 0*02, which
is within the allowed limits of deviation. In future,
however, we shall have completely to eliminate such
remarks from our calculations, even if it means making
a separate class for them. We shall, moreover, observe
this rule in the next chapter where the coefficient of
ego-centrism has been calculated solely on the basis of
remarks made between children.
11. CONCLUSION. What are the conclusions we
can draw from these facts? It would seem that up to
38 STUDIES IN CHILD LOGIC
a certain age we may safely admit that children think
and act more ego-centrically than adults, that they share
each other's intellectual life less than we do. True,
when they are together they seem to talk to each other
a great deal more than we do about what they are
doing, but for the most part they are only talking to
themselves. We, on the contrary, keep silent far
longer about our action, but our talk is almost always
socialized.
Such assertions may seem paradoxical. In observ-
ing children between the ages of 4 and 7 at work
together in the classes of the Maison des Petits, one is
certainly struck by silences, which are, we repeat, in
no way imposed nor even suggested 'by the adults.
One would expect, not indeed the formation of working
groups, since children are slow to awake to social life,
but a hubbub caused by all the children talking at
once. This is not what happens. All the same, it
is obvious that a child between the ages of 4 and 7,
placed in the conditions of spontaneous work provided
by the educational games of the Maison des Petits^
breaks silence far oftener than does the adult at work,
and seems at first sight to be continuously communi-
cating his thoughts to those around him.
Ego-centrism must not be confused with secrecy.
Reflexion in the child does not admit of privacy.
Apart from thinking by images or autistic symbols
which cannot be directly communicated, the child up
to an age, as yet undetermined but probably some-
where about seven, is incapable of keeping to himself
the thoughts which enter his mind. He says every-
thing. He has no verbal continence. Does this mean
that he socializes his thought more than we do ? That
is the whole question, and it, is for us to see to whom
the child really speaks. It may be to others. We
think on the contrary that, as the preceding study shows,
it is first and foremost to himself, and that speech,
before it can be used to socialize thought, serves to
THE FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE 39
accompany and reinforce individual activity. Let us
try to examine more closely the difference between
thought which is socialized but capable of secrecy, and
infantile thought which is ego-centric but incapable of
secrecy.
The adult, even in his most personal and private
occupation, even when he is engaged on an enquiry
which is incomprehensible to his fellow-beings, thinks
socially, has continually in his mind's eye his colla-
borators or opponents, actual or eventual, at any rate
members of his own profession to whom sooner or
later he will announce the result of his labours. This
mental picture pursues him throughout his task. The
task itself is henceforth socialized at almost every stage
of its development. Invention eludes this process, but
the need for checking and demonstrating calls into
being an inner speech addressed throughout to a hypo-
thetical opponent, whom the imagination often pictures
as one of flesh and blood. When, therefore, the adult
is brought face to face with his fellow-beings, what
he announces to them is something already socially
elaborated and therefore roughly adapted to his audience,
i.e., it is comprehensible. Indeed, the further a man
has advanced in his own line of thought, the better
able is he to see things from the point of view of others
and to make himself understood by them.
The child, on the other hand, placed in the con-
ditions which we have described, seems to talk far more
than the' adult. Almost everything he does is to the
tune of remarks such as "I'm drawing a hat," "I'm
doing it better than you," etc. Child thought, there-
fore, seems more social, less capable of sustained and
solitary research. This is so only in appearance. The
child has less verbal continence simply because he
does not know what it is to keep a thing to himself.
Although he talks almost incessantly to his neighbours,
he rarely places himself at their point of view. He
speaks to them for the most part as if he were alone,
40 STUDIES IN CHILD LOGIC
and as if he were thinking aloud. He speaks, there-
fore, in a language which disregards the precise shade
of meaning in things and ignores the particular angle
from which they are viewed, and which above all is
always making assertions, even in argument, instead
of justifying them. Nothing could be harder to under-
stand than the note-books which we have filled with
the conversation of Pie and Lev. Without full com-
mentaries, taken down at the same time as the children's
remarks, they would be incomprehensible. Everything
is indicated by allusion, by pronouns and demonstrative
articles " he, she, the, mine, him, etc." which can
mean anything in turn, regardless of the demands of
clarity or even of intelligibility. (The examination of
this style must not detain us now ; it will appear again
in Chapter III in connexion with verbal explanation
between one child and another.) In a word, the child
hardly ever even asks himself whether he has been
understood. For him, that goes without saying, for
he does not think about others when he talks. He
utters a " collective monologue." His language only
begins to resemble that of adults when he is directly
interested in making himself understood ; when he
gives orders or asks questions. To put it quite simply,
we may say that the adult thinks socially, even when
he is alone, and that the child under 7 thinks ego-
centrically, even in the society of others.
What is the reason for this? It is, in our opinion,
twofold. It is due, in the first place, to the absence
of any sustained social intercourse between the children
of less than 7 or 8, and in the second place to the
fact that the language used in the fundamental activity
of the child play is one of gestures, movement
and mimicry as much as of words. (There is, as
we have said, no real social life between children of
less than 7 or 8 years, x The type of children's society
represented in a classroom of the Maison des Petits
is obviously of a fragmentary character, in which con-
THE FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE 41
sequently there is neither division of work, centraliza-
tion of effort, nor unity of conversation. We may go
further, and say that it is a society in which, strictly
speaking, individual and social life are not differentiated.
An adult is at once far more highly individualized and
far more highly socialized than a child forming part of
such a society. He is more individualized, since he
can work in private without perpetually announcing
what he is doing, and without imitating his neighbours.
He is more socialized for the reasons which have just
given. The child is neither individualized, since he
cannot keep a single thought secret, and since every-
thing done by one member of the group is repeated
through a sort of imitative repercussion by almost
every other member, nor is he socialized, since this
imitation is not accompanied by what may properly
be called an interchange of thought, about half the
remarks made by children being ego-centric in character.
If, as Baldwin and Janet maintain, imitation is accom-
panied by a sort of confusion between one's own
action and that of others, then we may find in this
fragmentary type of society based on imitation some
sort of explanation of/ the paradoxical character of the
conversation of children who, while they are continu-
ally announcing their doings, yet talk only for them-
selves, without listening to anyone else. !
Social life at the Maison des Petits passes, according
to the observations of Miles Audemars and Lafendel,
through three stages. |Up till the age of about 5, the
child almost always works alone % From 5 to about
7j, little groups of two are formed, like that of Pie and
Ez (cf. the remarks taken down under the heading
"adapted information.") These groups are transitory
and irregular. Finally, between 7 and 8 the desire
manifests itself to work with others. I Now it is in
our opinion just at this age that ego-centric talk loses
some of its importance, and it is at this age, as we
shall see in the next chapter, that we shall place the
42 STUDIES IN CHILD LOGIC
higher stages of conversation properly so-called as it
takes place between children, jit is also at this age,
(cf. Chapter III) that children! begin to understand
each other in spoken explanations, as opposed to
explanations in which gestures play as important a
part as words. ;
A simple w^y of verifying these hypotheses is to
re-examine children between 7 and 8 whose ego-centrism
at an earlier stage has been ascertained. This is the
task which Mile. Berguer undertook with Lev. She
took down under the same conditions as previously
some 600 remarks made by Lev at the age of 7 and
a few months. The co-efficient of ego-centricism was
reduced to o'2j. 1
These stages of social development naturally concern
only the child's intellectual activity (drawings, con-
structive games, arithmetic, etc.). It goes without
saying that in outdoor games the problem is a com-
pletely different one ; but these games touch only on
a tiny portion of the thought and language of the
child.
If language in the child of about 6| is still so far
from being socialized, and if the part played in it by
the ego-centric forms is so considerable in comparison
to information and dialogue etc., the reason for this
lies in the fact thal| childish language includes two
distinct varieties, on4 made up of gestures, movements,
mimicry etc., which accompany or even completely
supplant the use of words, and the other consisting
solely of the spoken word./ Now, gesture cannot
express everything. Intellectual processes, therefore,
will remain ego-centric, whereas commands etc., all
the language that is bound up with action, with
handicraft, and especially with play, will tend to
1 We are at the moment collecting similar data from various children
between the ages of 3 and' 7, in such a way as to establish a graph of
development. These results will probably appear in the Archives de
Psychologic*
THE FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE 43
become more socialized. We shall come across this
essential distinction again in Chapter III. It will then
be seen that verbal understanding between children
is less adequate than between adults, but this does
not mean that in their games and in their manual
occupations they do not understand each other fairly
well ; this understanding, however, is not yet altogether
verbal.
12. RESULTS AND HYPOTHESES. Psycho-analysts
have been led to distinguish^two fundamentally different
modes of thinking: directed or intelligent thought, and
undirected or, as Bleuler proposes to call it, autistic
thought. Directed thought is conscious, i.e., it pursues
an aim which is present to the mind of the thinker ; it is
intelligent, which means that it is adapted to reality
and tries to influence it ; it admits of being true or
false (empirically or logically true), and it can be
communicated by language. Autistic thought is sub-
conscious, which means that the aims it pursues and
the problems it tries to solve are not present in con-
sciousness ; it is not adapted to reality, but creates for
itself a dream world of imagination ; it tends, not to
establish truths, but so to satisfy desires, and it remains
strictly individual and incommunicable as such by means
of language. On the contrary, it works chiefly by
images, and in order to express itself, has recourse to
indirect methods, evoking by means of symbols and
myths the feeling by which it is led. i
Here, then, are two fundamental modes of thought
which, though separated neither at their origin nor
in the course of their functioning are subject, never-
theless, to two diverging sets of logical laws. 1 Directed
thought, as it develops, is controlled more and more
by the laws of experience and of logic in the stricter
sense. Autistic thought, on the other hand, obeys a
1 There is interaction between these two modes of thought. Autism
undoubtedly calls into being and enriches many inventions which are
subsequently clarified and demonstrated by intelligence.
44 STUDIES m CHILD LOGIC
whole system of special laws (laws of symbolism and
of immediate satisfaction) which we need not elaborate
here. Let us consider, for instance, the completely
different lines of thought pursued from the point of
view of intelligence and from that of autism when we
think of such an object as, say, water.
To intelligence, water is a natural substance whose
origin we know, or whose formation we can at least
empirically observe ; its behaviour and motions are
subject to certain laws which can be studied, and it
has from the dawn of history been the object of technical
experiment (for purposes of irrigation, etc.). To the
autistic attitude, on the other hand, water is interest-
ing only in connexion with the satisfaction of organic
wants. It can be drunk. But as such, as well as simply
in virtue of its external appearance, it has come to
represent in folk and child fantasies, and in those of
adult subconsciousness, themes of a purely organic
character. It has in fact been identified with the
liquid substances which issue from the human body,
and has come, in this way, to symbolize birth itself,
as is proved by so many myths (birth of Aphrodite,
etc.), rites (baptism the symbol of a new birth), dreams l
and stories told by children. 2 Thus in the one case
thought adapts itself to water as part of the external
world, in the other, thought uses the idea of water not
in order to adapt itself to it, but in order to assimilate
it to those more or less conscious images connected
with fecundation and the idea of birth.
Now these two forms of thought, whose characteris-
tics diverge so profoundly, differ chiefly as to their origin,
the one being socialized and guided by the increasing
1 See Flournoy, H.
