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part3- 25. Pragmatics and Language Acquisition, Materiały naukowe, The Hanbook of Pragmatics

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25. Pragmatics and Language Acquisition : The Handbook of Pragmatics : Blackwell ...
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25. Pragmatics and Language Acquisition
EVE V. CLARK
Subject
Theoretical Linguistics
Ç
Pragmatics
Key
-Topics
Topics
language
DOI:
10.1111/b.9780631225485.2005.00027.x
The main function of language is not to express thought, È but rather to play an active
pragmatic part in human nature
Bronislaw
Bronislaw Malinowski (1935)
Malinowski (1935)
Malinowski (1935)
Do children focus first on forms and later on uses, or do they acquire both together as they master a
first language? Consider the exchange in (1) between preverbal Jordan (aged 1;2) and his mother, with
Jordan in his highchair looking toward a counter in the kitchen (Golinkoff 1983: 58).
1
(1) Jordan (vocalizes repeatedly until his mother turns around)
Mother (turns around to look at him)
Jordan (points to one of the objects on the counter)
Mother: Do you want this? (holds up milk container)
Jordan (shakes his head ÑnoÒ) (vocalizes, continues to point)
Mother: Do you want this? (holds up jelly jar)
Jordan (shakes his head ÑnoÒ) (continues to point) [two more offer-rejection pairs]
Mother: This? (holds up sponge)
Jordan (leans back in highchair, puts arms down, tension leaves body)
Mother (hands Jordan sponge)
This child was intent on communicating something, and managed to do so without words. He first
had to establish joint attention with his mother; he achieved this by getting her attention (with
vocalization) then pointing at the counter. But the counter had several objects on it, and without
words to pick out the one he wanted, he had to rely on his mother's being willing to offer each one in
turn until she reached the right one. He consistently rejected unwanted objects with a head-shake
while continuing to point and vocalize until his mother hit on the thing he wanted. This exchange is
far from unusual. Children communicate remarkably well, even when their linguistic resources are still
very limited. They persist in expressing their intentions and adults cooperate in trying to arrive at
appropriate interpretations (Werner and Kaplan 1963, Bates 1976, Carter 1978, de Len 1998).
How do children manage this? First, they make use of what they know, in context, to make inferences
about the intentions of others. Take the episode in (2) (from E. Clark, diary data).
(2) D (1;11.28, talking at breakfast, as his father tapped the edge of D's bowl with a spoon):
Herb hitting [ ]bowl.
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Father: Why was I hitting your bowl? Why was I hitting your bowl? D (grinning, as he picked up
his spoon): [ ] eat [ ] cornflakes.
This child drew on his experience of past mealtimes when he typically talked a lot and ate rather little.
One- and two-year-olds generally appear to rely on their knowledge about events in deciding how to
treat requests (e.g. Shatz 1978). And by age two, for example, they readily treat negated why
questions as requests for action (Ervin-Tripp 1970: 82), as shown in (3):
(3) Mother: Why don't you put it in the wastebasket?
Sally (2;0): Throw away?
By age three, they can sometimes offer explicit analysis of a situation as well, as in (4) (Ervin-Tripp
1977: 182):
(4) Mother (in car): I'm cold.
Child (3;3): I already shut the window.
In short, children express their own intentions and make inferences about the intentions of others
from an early age.
What kinds of pragmatic knowledge can children draw on as they acquire communicative skills? In this
chapter, I take up some aspects of pragmatic development and the evidence that children are
attending to speaker intentions on the one hand, and to what the addressee already knows on the
other. Attending to these two factors in an exchange requires that children make use of common
ground, updating it as needed; it also requires that they take note of speech acts, and learn which
inferences to draw from what speakers do and don't say (see Austin 1962, Levinson 1983, Horn
1996a).
1 Joint Attention
1 Joint Attention
In the exchanges just cited, the children's inferences seemed to be based on their own experience and
licensed by what was in common ground. Common ground restricts the possible inferences, whether
these concern the speaker's intentions, the meaning of a new word or construction, or what is
implicated by what the speaker said.
To make use of common ground, speakers must first establish joint attention; then they can draw on
that along with physical and conversational co-presence (H. Clark 1996). Consider the exchange in (5)
where a parent establishes joint attention with a young one-year-old in order to show him an
unfamiliar object. Joey's mother tries six times to get his attention before succeeding. She uses his
name twice, then touches his cheek, then uses his name again. She then switches to look, then
combines look with an endearment as she moves her gaze to the target object. Only at this point did
the child look at the object and so give evidence of joint attention.
2
(5) Joey (1;5.3; being introduced to a small plastic crocodile)
child looking at door,
child looking at door,
child looking at door, 0secs
4secs
parent looks at child, 0secs-7.03secs
(a) Parent: Joe. (0.25secs-)
(b) Parent: Joey. (2secs-)
parent touches J's cheek, 3.1secs-
(c) Parent: Joey. (3.25secs-)
child
0secs
-4secs
4secs
child looks off at camera, 4.2secs
-8.23secs
child
looks off at camera, 4.2secs
8.23secs
(d) Parent: Look! (5.25secs-)
(e) Parent: Look! (7.1secs-)
(f) Parent: Honey - look at this. (7.15secs-)
parent looks at toy crocodile, 7.25secs-
child looks at crocodile,
child looks at crocodile,
child looks at crocodile, 8.25secs
16.22secs
parent presents crocodile, 9.05secs-
8.25secs
-16.22secs
16.22secs
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(g) Parent: Look at this. (9.2secs-)
As children get older, they appear to monitor adults more closely, and are able to switch their
attention more quickly to whatever the adult is attending to. Consider the exchange in (6) between
Cathy (1;9.4) and her mother. Within one second of her mother's simultaneously picking up and
looking at the (unfamiliar) measuring-spoon, Cathy switched her gaze to the spoon too.
3
(6) Cathy (1;9.4, being introduced to a measuring-spoon)
parent picks up measuring-spoon, 0secs-
parent looks at measuring-spoon, 0secs-
child looks at measuring
-spoon,
spoon, 1sec
-7.3secs
child looks at measuring
spoon,
1sec
7.3secs
parent holds out spoon, 2.05secs-
(a) Parent: This is a spoon. (2.95secs-)
parent looks at child, 3.8secs-
(b) Parent: It's a measuring-spoon. (4.05secs-)
The parents of one-year-olds get their children's attention with gesture and gaze on the one hand
and with language on the other (Moore and Dunham 1995, Schmidt 1996). They look at the child and
the target object; they point to the object, hold it out, pick it up, tap it, and point to properties like
teeth, wheels, or spots. And they may also demonstrate how an object moves or works (e.g. pushing a
toy truck across the table, putting sunglasses on) (see also Shatz 1978, Zukow 1986, Mervis and
Mervis 1988, Gogate et al. 2000). They use deictic terms in introductory utterances (e.g. this, that,
see, here), names, and formulaic utterances to engage the child's attention. For their part, one-year-
olds indicate when they are attending: they look at the focus of attention; they reach for the target
object, touch it, or manipulate it. As they get older, they also repeat the term the adult has offered for
it (E. Clark 2001b).
Once parents and young children achieve joint attention, they can count as grounded whatever object
or action is at the focus of shared attention. This grounding restricts the candidate referents for any
new words on that occasion, and so places limits on children's hypotheses about the meanings of
unfamiliar words.
2 Common Ground
Common Ground
Adults offer children extensive pragmatic information about language use, especially about word use
(E. Clark and Wong 2002). They offer conventional terms for objects, properties, relations, and
activities, and in so doing, place the referents of these terms in common ground. They offer
information about how an unfamiliar term differs from and is related to other words in the same
domain. They often point out distinguishing properties of the referents of new words, e.g.
characteristic noises, activities, or details of appearance (E. Clark 2001a, E. Clark and Chouinard, in
preparation). Consider the exchange in (7):
(7) Mo (looking at a picture of some owls in a book with child): what are these? those are
birdies.
Ch (1;7.19): birdies.
Mo: and the name of these kinds of birdies they call owls. (mother points at the picture)
Mo: and they say Ñhoo-hoo.Ò
Ch: hoo. [NEWENG:NE20:0191, line 1432+]
Notice that the mother here first offers the word birdies, which is immediately repeated by the child.
She then offers owls and goes straight on to offer a distinguishing sound, hoo. This too is taken up by
the child.
The child's utterances suggest that she has probably made three inferences here: that the objects
pictured belong to the category of birds (birdies), and to the subcategory owls (owls), and that this
subcategory of bird says ÑhooÒ (hoo) (see E. Clark 2001a).
Some adult offers are tacit repairs of what the child has just proposed, as in (8), where the child takes
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up the adult term and makes use of it seconds later.
(8) D (2;8.14, with a toothbrush in his hand): An' I going to tease.
Mother (puzzled): Oh. Oh, you mean you're going to pretend to do your teeth?
Child: Yes.
(then, as father came by a minute later)
Father: Are you going to do your teeth?
Child: No, I was pretending. [E. Clark, diary data]
Both direct and indirect offers depend on joint attention combined with the physical co-presence of
the target object or action, plus conversational co-presence (the word for the target referent).
Because, together, these factors restrict the domain of possible meanings, they limit the inferences
children can make about a new word (E. Clark 2001a).
Adults also connect new words to known ones: they relate them through inclusion (ÑX is a kind of YÒ),
parts (ÑX is part of YÒ), properties (ÑXs have YsÒ), and function (ÑX is used for doing YÒ); they also give
definitions and provide lists of entities or actions from the same domain (E. Clark and Wong 2002). All
this information is introduced within conversational exchanges. By supplying conventional terms and
relating them to others already known, adults offer children more general ÑmapsÒ of how words
represent the world. What these metalanguage directions convey is an important ingredient in adult-
child conversations. They provide words and their connections, as shown in (9) and (10).
(9) Sarah (3;6.6) looking at a picture of a nest with eggs in it, with her mother)
Mo: that' s a nest.
Sarah: a nest.
Mo: um. that's where the birdies live. that' s a birdie house. they call it a nest.
[Brown: Sarah064, line 345+]
(10) D (3;9.18, at the airport; watching as a mechanic put two chocks by the plane wheels):
Why did he put two loggers?
Mother: Oh, they're called chocks and they keep the wheels from moving.
Child: Why did he put the chocks? [E. Clark, diary data]
With each offer of a word, adults add to common ground. And children often ratify these offers
explicitly by repeating them. Whenever adults add further information about a new term, this too is
added to common ground. With these directions about use, then, adults both provide new words and
connect them to their semantic neighbors.
3 Convention and Contrast
Users of language observe two general pragmatic principles. The first assumes conventionality in the
system they are using. If a particular meaning is conventionally associated with a particular form,
speakers typically use that form for that meaning. They can then be sure their addressees will
understand them as intended. If they don't use the expected form, their addressees assume they must
mean something else (E. Clark and H. Clark 1979, Horn 1984a, E. Clark 1987, 1990, 1993).
Conventionality can be defined as follows:
Conventionality: For certain meanings, speakers assume that there is a conventional form that
should be used in the language community.
For a conventional system to be most effective, speakers will give priority to already-established,
conventional forms for particular meanings.
This principle goes hand-in-hand with a second. It assumes that different forms differ in meaning. If
a speaker uses two distinct forms, he must intend two different things. And if he uses a form different
from the one anticipated, he must intend something else. This is the principle of Contrast, defined as
follows:
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Contrast: Speakers assume that any difference in form signals a difference in meaning.
Conventionality and Contrast interact: speakers are expected to use conventional forms. When they
don't (when they coin new terms, for instance), their addressees infer that they are trying to express
some other meaning, one not captured by a conventional term (E. Clark and H. Clark 1979). For
example, the speaker who first coined to winterize (meaning Ñto make winter-proofÒ) made clear by
using an unfamiliar form that his meaning differed from that of the established verb from the same
stem, to winter (Ñspend the winterÒ). Conventionality confers consistency over time for speakers
denoting object- and event-types. This stability in conventional meanings, along with the contrasts
among them, is what makes languages effective for communication (Lewis 1969, H. Clark 1996).
Children appear to grasp these principles at an early age (E. Clark 1983, 1993). They take as targets
in producing words the conventional forms they hear from adults. Where there are discrepancies
between adult and child productions, they repair their own pronunciations in the direction of adult
forms, from age one onwards. They treat different words as having different meanings from the start,
and rely on this as they build up semantic domains. In summary, they use both Conventionality and
Contrast as they make inferences about new words.
Children rely on Conventionality more generally when they receive corrections from adults. Adults
often reformulate erroneous child utterances, providing a conventional way to express the child's
apparent intention: they correct mispronounced words (e.g. fish for fis, jump for dup); they correct
morphological errors, changing her to she, and comed to came; they offer the conventional word
where children have chosen another term (e.g. peel for fix, logger for chock, or gardener for plant-
man); and they correct children's syntactic errors, fixing word-order or switching to the appropriate
construction. In short, adult reformulations generally offer children the conventional forms for what
they seem to be saying (Chouinard and E. Clark 2001, E. Clark and Chouinard 2000).
Adults often offer such reformulations in side-sequences as they try to establish what the child
meant, as in (11), where the child's father, in reformulating, initially misunderstood him:
(11) Abe (2;5.7): the plant didn't cried.
Father: the plant cried?
Abe: no.
Father: Oh, the plant didn't cry.
Abe: uhhuh. [Kuczaj, Abe 3:163]
And children generally acknowledge these reformulations. They repeat the words or constructions
proposed by the adult, as in (12):
(12) Abe (2;5.10): I want butter mine.
Father: Ok, give it here and I'll put butter on it.
Abe: I need butter on it. [Kuczaj, Abe 4:66]
They acknowledge the adult's reformulation, with yes, uhhuh, or even no, within side-sequences, as
in (11). Or they tacitly accept the reformulation by simply continuing on with their next turn in the
exchange, much as adults do (H. Clark 1996).
When adults reformulate children's utterances, they offer the conventional form for the meaning
intended. By reformulating the child's utterance with any changes called for, they offer an utterance
that contrasts directly with what the child just said. By doing this, they implicate that this is how to
say what the child apparently intended. Just as in adult exchanges (Walker 1996), these
reformulations (or repeats with corrections) signal to children that there is some question about either
what they said or how they said it. In summary, children become aware early on that adult
reformulations signal that there is something awry with how they said what they said.
Children start to master the general conditions on conversations (how to start up, how to take turns,
what to infer from certain kinds of contributions) fairly early. But what goes on in conversation cannot
always be generalized to other situations. The pragmatic inferences applicable to questions, for
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