Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T03:53:39.855Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

When a nod is as good as a word: Form-function relationships between questions and their responses

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

D. V. M. Bishop ,
J. Chan ,
J. Hartley  and
F. Weir
D. V. M. Bishop*
Affiliation:
MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge
J. Chan
Affiliation:
University of Manchester
J. Hartley
Affiliation:
University of Sheffield
F. Weir
Affiliation:
University of Manchester
*
Department of Experimental Psychology, South Parks Road, Oxford 0X1 3UD, United Kingdom. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

It is well established that syntactic form and communicative function do not always correspond: for instance, a syntactic question might function as a request for information (“did you see the play?”) or a request for acknowledgment when there is no doubt about polarity of the response (“there's a tower at Blackpool, isn't there”). Using data from a corpus of 18 child–adult conversations, we distinguished adult utterances that solicited information from those soliciting acknowledgment (i.e., where the response was predictable, and the utterance served a predominantly social function). Both types of utterance were usually responded to by children, but the form of response differed according to the communicative function of the utterance. Nonverbal and prosodic responses (e.g., nods or “mmh”) were significantly more likely to occur in response to utterances soliciting acknowledgment than in response to yes/no questions that solicited information. There were consistent form–function relationships for responses as well as for soliciting utterances. Nonverbal nods and headshakes were not functionally equivalent to verbal “yes” and “no.”

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , July 1998 , pp. 415 - 432
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Adams, C, & Bishop, D. V. M. (1989). Conversational characteristics of children with semantic-pragmatic disorder. I. Exchange structure, turntaking, repairs and cohesion. British Journal of Disorders of Communication, 24, 211–239.Google Scholar
Brennan, S. E., & Williams, M. (1995). The feeling of another's knowing: Prosody and filled pauses as cues to listeners about the metacognitive states of speakers. Journal of Memory and Language, 34. 383–398.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chapman, R. S. (1981). Exploring children's communicative intents. In Miller, J. F. (Ed.), Assessing language production in children (pp. 111–136). Baltimore: University Park Press.Google Scholar
Clark, H. H., & Brennan, S. E. (1991). Grounding in communication. In Resnick, L. B., Levine, J. M., & Teasley, S. D. (Eds.), Perspectives on socially shared cognition (pp. 127–149). Washington: American Psychological Association.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, J. (1960). A coefficient of agreement for nominal scales. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 20, 37–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coulthard, M. (1977). An introduction to discourse analysis. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Cox, D. R., & Snell, E. J. (1989). Analysis of binary data (2nd ed.). London: Chapman and Hall.Google Scholar
Doherty-Sneddon, G., & Kent, G. (1996). Visual signals and the communication abilities of children. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 37, 949–959.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dore, J. (1977a). Children's illocutionary acts. In Freedle, R. O. (Ed.), Discourse production and comprehension (pp. 227–244). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
Dore, J.(1977b). “Oh them sherrif”: A pragmatic analysis of children's responses to questions. In Ervin-Tripp, S. & Mitchell-Keman, C. (Eds.), Child discourse (pp. 139–164). New York: Academic.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duncan, S., & Fiske, D. W. (1985). Structure, strategy, and research. In Duncan, S. & Fiske, D. W.(Eds.), Interaction structure and strategy (pp. 294–327). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Dunn, M. P., Dunn, M. L., Whetton, C, & Pintilie, D. (1982). British Picture Vocabulary Scale. Windsor: NFER Nelson.Google Scholar
Fey, M. (1986). Language intervention with young children. Boston: College-Hill Press.Google Scholar
Lewis, C, & Mitchell, P. (1994). Children's early understanding of mind: Origins and development. Hove: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G., & Svartik, J. (1972). A grammar of contemporary English. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Raven, J. C, Court, J. H., & Raven, J. (1986). Raven's Progressive Matrices and Raven's Coloured Matrices. London: H. K. Lewis.Google Scholar
Reid, J. (1995). A study of gender differences in minimal responses. Journal of Pragmatics, 24, 489–512.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Semel, E. M., Wiig, E. H., & Secord, W. (1980). Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-Revised. San Antonio, TX: Psychological Corporation.Google Scholar