Editor: Peter Garrett (University of Cardiff)
Review editor: Terry Shortall (University of Birmingham)
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Volume: 9 Number: 4 Page: 218–235
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Children's Elicited Use of Pragmatic Language Functions: How Six- and Seven-year-old Children Adapt to the Interactional Environments of Story Scenarios
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Monica Gordon Pershey
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Pragmatic language skill involves adapting to an interactional environment where a communicator must interpret and originate communicative acts. This study used an elicitation procedure to reveal how 80
six- and seven-year-old children adapted to the pragmatic context of a story and furnished a remark that would be pragmatically appropriate for a story character to utter. Children 'spoke for' characters
in about 70% of the contexts and thus revealed facility in conceptual perspective-taking and attributing mental states to others. The use of self-generated extra-textual language reveals one way
that pragmatic language skill is at work when young children comprehend and respond to text. Given these findings, a model of children's transaction with narrative based on interpretation of others' mental
states, understanding of pretence and characterisation, and pragmatic language skill is proposed.
© Multilingual Matters 2000
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