This document discusses pragmatic development in children. Pragmatics refers to the social use of language. Children acquire language because it serves important functions for communication, interaction, and social relationships. These include instrumental, regulatory, interactional, personal, heuristic, imaginative, and representational functions. Early parent-child interactions like peek-a-boo games prepare children for conversation skills like turn-taking and response. As children develop, their language use becomes more appropriate to different social situations through mechanisms like speech convergence and accommodation.

1. Lecture Six
Pragmatic Development

2. Pragmatics …
• Pragmatics = the part played by language
in social situations and relationships.
• Del Hymes: ‘communicative competence’
When to speak
How to respond to others
Appropriate registers

3. Language functions …
• Bottom line: children are motivated to
acquire language because it serves certain
purposes/functions for them.
• Halliday (1975): seven functions …

4. Halliday’s taxonomy …
• INSTRUMENTAL
• REGULATORY
• INTERACTIONAL
• PERSONAL
• HEURISTIC
• IMAGINATIVE
• REPRESENTATIONAL

5. Be careful …
• As with other
elements of language
acquisition, remember
that pragmatic
development begins
before a child starts
to speak.

6. Early years …
• Children are introduced
to important role of
language in everyday
life.
• Adults speak to them a
great deal.
• Routine events are
accompanied by
regularly repeated
utterances.

7. Conversation preparation …
• Child-
parent/carer
interactions
prepare the child
for later
participation in
conversation.

8. Bancroft (1996) …
• ‘Peek-a-boo’ parallels:
Turn-taking
Response
Common purpose and understand the
sequence
Pleasure

9. Other interactions …
• Despite the fact that the child has not yet
begun to speak, adults will:
Ask questions
Express agreement
Give approving/disapproving responses

10. First conversations …
• First utterances:
statements (rather
than questions) and
not always directed at
anyone!
• Child will often seem
to ignore other
speaker.

11. First conversations …
• Typical
conversation:
Initiated by adult
Dependent on
continued adult input
to progress

12. Later development …
• Age 2-4: significant
development in
conversational skills:
Turn taking
Response to questions
Greetings
Politeness forms

13. Speech Convergence and
Accommodation Theory
• Yousef (1991)
• Group of children in Trinidad
• Children responded to different social
situations by using different varieties of
English

14. Speech Convergence and
Accommodation Theory
• Janet (3, 9): Past tense verb forms:
Conversation with mother: 100% SE
Family helper (a Trinidadian English
speaker): decreasing amounts
Brother/same age children: decreasing
amounts

15. After starting school …
• Children
develop
increased
sensitivity to
the needs of
their listener.
• Greater
understanding of
language more
appropriate to
formal situations
(register).

16. Vocabulary test …
• COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE
• LANGUAGE FUNCTION
• INSTRUMENTAL
• REGULATORY
• INTERACTIONAL
• PERSONAL
• HEURISTIC
• IMAGINATIVE
• REPRESENTATIONAL

17. Vocabulary test …
• SPEECH CONVERGENCE
• ACCOMMODATION THEORY
• REGISTER