Pragmatic Development

Pragmatic Development

1. Pragmatics

   • Prags
     • Part played by lang in social sits & relations
   • Del Hymes
     • 'Communicative copetence'
     • When to speak
     • How to respond to others
     • Appropriate registers

2. Lang functions

   • Bottom line
     • Children motivated acquire lang because it serves certain purposes / functions for them
   • Halliday 1975
     • 7 functions - Halliday's Taxonomy
     • Instrumental
     • Regulatiory
     • Interactional
     • Personal
     • Heuristic
     • Imaginative
     • Representational

3. Be careful

   • As w/ other elements of lang acquisition, prag development begins before child starts to speak

4. Early yrs

   • Children intro'd to important role of lang i everyday life
   • Adults speak to them a great deal
   • Routine events accompanied by reg repeated utterancces

5. Convo prep

   • Child - parent - carer interactions prepare child for later participation in convo

6. Bancroft 1996

   • 'Peek a boo' parallels
     • Turn - Taking
     • Response
     • Common purpose & understand sequence
     • Pleasure

7. Other interactions

   • Despite fact child hasn't yet begun to speak, adults will
     • Ask Qs
     • Express agreement
     • Give approving / disapproving responses

8. First convos

   • First utterances
     • Statements (rather than Qs) & not always directed at anyone
   • Child will often seem to ignore the speaker
   • Typical covo
     • Initiated by adult
     • Dependent on cont adult input to progress

9. Later development

   • 2 - 4 signif development in convo skills
     • Turn taking
     • Responses to Qs
     • Greetings
     • Politeness forms

10. Speech convergence & accommodation theory

    • Yousef 1991
      • Group of children in Trinidad
      • Children responded to diff social sits by using diff varieties of English
      • Janet ( 3 yrs 9 months)
        • Past tense verb forms
        • Convo w/ mum = 100% standard English - SE
        • Family helper (Trinidadian English speaker) SE used decreasing amounts
        • Brother / same age children SE decreased even more

11. After starting school

    • Greater understanding of lang more appropriate to formal sits (formal register)
    • Children develop increased sensitivity to needs of their listener