Balinese spatial reference frames linguistic and nonlinguistic evidence from the north of Bali

Systems of spatial reference have been explored by many scholars for evidence that language affects human thought. The main purpose of the current study is to describe how Balinese people living in the north side of Bali use their frames of spatial reference, and to look for evidence that language affects human spatial cognition. This study employs both linguistic tasks (e.g., object rotation and asking direction techniques) and non-linguistic tasks (e.g., rearrangement of objects). Fifty-one children and six Balinese monolinguals participated in this study. The results of the current study using object rotation, asking direction, and object rearrangement tasks involving the child subjects showed different results. Specifically, an absolute system of spatial reference is dominantly employed by the child subjects in both the object rotation and object rearrangement tasks. Although not dominantly applied, the use of a relative system was also observed in the two tasks. Interestingly, the later system was dominantly used in the asking direction tasks, which is likely affected by subjects’ knowledge of the Indonesian relative system. The results exhibited by the child subjects show a developmental trend towards the use of the absolute system exhibited by the adult subjects in the three tasks. Keywords: Balinese; Spatial reference; Absolute system; Relative system; Language acquisition