How children comprehend speech acts and communicative gestures

Bucciarelli, Monica; Colle, Livia; Bara, Bruno G.

doi:10.1016/s0378-2166(02)00099-1

Cited by 135 publications

(117 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…On the basis of earlier studies (e.g. Bosco et al, 2013;Bucciarelli et al, 2003) showing that children's performance in pragmatic tasks is affected by the level of inferential and contextual complexity, we expect to observe a different pattern of performance on the different kinds of Pragma tasks.…”

Section: The Present Studymentioning

confidence: 92%

“…Nevertheless, even if young children cannot yet resolve the implicit meanings of contextually complex utterances, they can utilize contextual information when identifying the object of references from the context (Bezuidenhout & Sroda, 1998;Loukusa, et al, 2007; or interpreting simple indirect utterances (Bucciarelli, Colle, & Bara, 2003). Compared to older children, the younger ones experience more challenges in understanding the intentions of utterances when there is a discrepancy between the literal meaning and the intended one as, for example, in deceitful and ironic expressions (Bosco et al, 2013;Bosco & Gabbatore, 2017a;Bucciarelli et al, 2003;Filippova & Astington, 2010;Glenwright & Pexman, 2010;Happé, 1993;Harris & Pexman, 2003;Wilson, 2013). It has been suggested that this could reflect the level of contextual complexity and inferential processes involved in different types of contextually demanding expressions (Bosco et al, 2013;Bucciarelli et al, 2003;Loukusa et al, 2007;.…”

Section: Development Of Social-pragmatic Comprehensionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Compared to older children, the younger ones experience more challenges in understanding the intentions of utterances when there is a discrepancy between the literal meaning and the intended one as, for example, in deceitful and ironic expressions (Bosco et al, 2013;Bosco & Gabbatore, 2017a;Bucciarelli et al, 2003;Filippova & Astington, 2010;Glenwright & Pexman, 2010;Happé, 1993;Harris & Pexman, 2003;Wilson, 2013). It has been suggested that this could reflect the level of contextual complexity and inferential processes involved in different types of contextually demanding expressions (Bosco et al, 2013;Bucciarelli et al, 2003;Loukusa et al, 2007;. The developmental trend shown in children's performance on different types of pragmatically challenging tasks (e.g.…”

Section: Development Of Social-pragmatic Comprehensionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The developmental trend shown in children's performance on different types of pragmatically challenging tasks (e.g. Bosco et al, 2013;Bucciarelli et al, 2003) suggests that the assessment of children's social-pragmatic performance should include questions requiring different kinds of contextual processing in order to get a holistic picture of their social-pragmatic skills.…”

Section: Development Of Social-pragmatic Comprehensionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Previous studies suggest that pragmatic abilities develop over time, and even though young children can utilize contextual information in simple familiar situations (Bezuidenhout & Sroda, 1998;, they may have difficulties with more unfamiliar and demanding tasks (Bosco et al, 2013;Bosco & Gabbatore, 2017a, 2017bBucciarelli et al, 2003;Glenwright & Pexman, 2010;Harris & Pexman, 2003;. In this study we utilized a battery of tasks called Pragma, which enables us to investigate a wide range of social-pragmatic abilities in typically developing (TD) children.…”

Section: The Present Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Understanding Contextual and Social Meaning in Typically Developing Finnish-Speaking Four- To Eight-Year-Old Children

Loukusa

Mäkinen

Gabbatore

et al. 2017

Psychology of Language and Communication

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This study examined the development of social-pragmatic comprehension in 170 Finnish four-to eight-year-old children. The children were asked to respond to socially and contextually demanding questions targeting their social-pragmatic language processing, and to explain their correct answers in order to elicit their awareness of how they had derived the answers from the context. The results showed that the number of correct answers increased especially between the ages of four and seven years. We found that questions demanding contextual processing without mind-reading were the easiest to understand, followed by questions demanding processing of feelings of others and false beliefs. The questions demanding understanding of relevant language use and processing of contextual factors including mental states and intentions were the most challenging for the children. Between four and five years of age there was a remarkable developmental phase in children's ability to give proper explanations.

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Section: The Present Studymentioning

confidence: 92%

Section: Development Of Social-pragmatic Comprehensionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Development Of Social-pragmatic Comprehensionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Development Of Social-pragmatic Comprehensionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Present Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Understanding Contextual and Social Meaning in Typically Developing Finnish-Speaking Four- To Eight-Year-Old Children

Loukusa

Mäkinen

Gabbatore

et al. 2017

Psychology of Language and Communication

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Just the facts or just for fun? Children's understanding of and sensitivity to retelling contexts

Kulkofsky

Principe

Debaran

et al. 2010

Applied Cognitive Psychology

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Adults appear to recognize that different memory sharing contexts, such as telling a story to a friend at a party versus providing eyewitness testimony, vary in their accuracy demands and adjust their retellings accordingly. There is less evidence that children are able to make the same distinctions. In the present two-part experiment, we first tested 6-8-year-old children's beliefs about the accuracy requirements of different memory sharing contexts that varied on the listener's implicit expectation about accuracy. Children were then read a short story and were given retelling instructions that emphasized accuracy or entertainment. Results from the first task indicated that children evidence a significant truth bias, suggesting that they believe accurate retellings are preferred regardless of context. Despite this, children did appear to adjust their retellings as a function of context, with retellings in the high accuracy condition including more verbatim and less error statements. Finally, children who evidenced a stronger truth bias were less likely to employ the language of storytelling by producing lower-quality narratives.

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Young Children's Difficulty with Indirect Speech Acts: Implications for Questioning Child Witnesses

Evans

Stolzenberg

Lee

et al. 2014

Behavioral Sci & The Law

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Prior research suggests that infelicitous choice of questions can significantly underestimate children's actual abilities, independently of suggestiveness. One possibly difficult question type is indirect speech acts such as "Do you know..." questions (DYK, e.g., "Do you know where it happened?"). These questions directly ask if respondents know, while indirectly asking what respondents know. If respondents answer "yes," but fail to elaborate, they are either ignoring or failing to recognize the indirect question (known as pragmatic failure). Two studies examined the effect of indirect speech acts on maltreated and non-maltreated 2- to 7-year-olds' post-event interview responses. Children were read a story and later interviewed using DYK and Wh- questions. Additionally, children completed a series of executive functioning tasks. Both studies revealed that using DYK questions increased the chances of pragmatic failure, particularly for younger children and those with lower inhibitory control skills.

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How children comprehend speech acts and communicative gestures

Cited by 135 publications

References 32 publications

Understanding Contextual and Social Meaning in Typically Developing Finnish-Speaking Four- To Eight-Year-Old Children

Understanding Contextual and Social Meaning in Typically Developing Finnish-Speaking Four- To Eight-Year-Old Children

Just the facts or just for fun? Children's understanding of and sensitivity to retelling contexts

Young Children's Difficulty with Indirect Speech Acts: Implications for Questioning Child Witnesses

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