Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T04:40:06.835Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Addressee co-operation and request reformulation in young children*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Haydée Marcos  and
Josie Bernicot
Haydée Marcos*
Affiliation:
Laboratoire de PsyDEE, Université de Paris 5-CNRS
Josie Bernicot*
Affiliation:
Laboratoire de PsyDEE, Université de Paris 5-CNRS
*
Laboratoire de Psychologie du Développement et de l'Education, 46 rue Saint-Jacques, 75005 Paris, France.
Laboratoire de Psychologie du Développement et de l'Education, 46 rue Saint-Jacques, 75005 Paris, France.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to show that children under age 3;0 are capable of reformulating requests in different ways depending on how their addressee responds to the request. This adaptive ability is considered to be an indication of the use of both communicative and conversational skills. Children from French-speaking families were observed at two developmental thresholds: the end of the prelinguistic period (1;6) and the start of the linguistic period (2;6). The verbal and nonverbal outputs of the two groups of 12 children (1;6 and 2;6) were compared in three object request situations: the adult immediately complies with the request (satisfaction), the adult asks a clarification question (clarification), and the adult refuses to comply with the request (refusal). The ways in which the children adapted to each situation were found to be similar at the two ages considered. In the clarification situation, vocal productions and their repairs were more numerous, whereas in the refusal situation, non-reformulations and gazes to and from the requested object and addressee predominated. The discussion deals with the significance of these results in the development of communicative and conversational skills in children.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 21 , Issue 3 , October 1994 , pp. 677 - 692
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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.)

Footnotes

[*]

The authors wish to thank Severin Prené and Sylvie Sanvicens for their contribution in this study, as well as the staff and children of the Seine and Marne (France) day care centres, who made this experiment possible.

References

REFERENCES

Anselmi, D., Tomasello, M. & Acunzo, M. (1986). Young children's responses to neutral and specific contingent queries. Journal of Child Language 13, 135–44.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Axia, G. & Baroni, M. R. (1985). Linguistic politeness at different age levels. Child Development 54, 918–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bates, E. (1976). Language and context: the acquisition of pragmatics. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Bernicot, J. (1991). French children's conception of requesting: the development of metapragmatic knowledge. International Journal of Behavioral Development 14, 285–304.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bernicot, J. & Legros, S. (1987). Direct and indirect directives: what do young children understand? Journal of Child Experimental Psychology 7, 267–93.Google Scholar
Bernicot, J. & Marcos, H. (1989). How do children learn to say what they mean? Perspectives on the pragmatics of dialogic interaction in development. Paper presented at the Conference of the Society for Research in Child Development,Kansas City, Missouri, USA.Google Scholar
Bernicot, J. & Marcos, H. (1990). Le développement des formes prélinguistiques et linguistiques de la demande: adaptation à la situation sociale. Journal of Canadian Behavioural Science 22, 236–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bernicot, J. & Marhokhian, A. (1989). To ask and insist after a refusal: how do 6–7-year-old children proceed? International Journal of Psychology 24, 409–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bruner, J. S. (1975). The ontogenesis of speech acts. Journal of Child Language 2, 1–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bruner, J. S. (1983). The acquisition of pragmatic commitments. In Golinkoff, R. M. (ed.), From prelinguistic to linguistic communication. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Bruner, J. S., Roy, C. & Ratner, N. (1982). The beginnings of request. In Nelson, K. E. (ed.), Children's language, Vol. 3, New York: Garden Press.Google Scholar
Dunn, J. (1988). The beginnings of social understanding. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ervin-Tripp, S., Guo, J. & Lampert, M. (1990). Politeness and persuasion in children's control acts. Journal of Pragmatics 14, 307–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ervin-Tripp, S., O'Connor, M. C. & Rosenberg, J. (1982). Language and power in the family. In Kramerae, C. & Schultz, M. (eds), Language and power, Urbana-Champaign: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Garvey, C. (1975). Requests and responses in children's speech. Journal of Child Language 2, 41–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garvey, C. (1977). The contingent query: a dependent act in conversation. In Lewis, M. & Rosenblum, L. (eds). Interaction, conversation and the development of language. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Golinkoff, R. M. (1986). The preverbal negotiation of failed messages. Journal of Child Language 13, 455–67.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Golinkoff, R. M. (1993). When is communication a ‘meeting of minds’? Journal of Child Language 20, 199–207.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Golinkoff, R. M. & Gordon, L. (1988). What makes communication run? Characteristics of immediate successes. First Language 8, 103–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gordon, D. P. & Ervin-Tripp, S. (1984). The structure of children's requests. In Schiefelbusch, R. L. & Pickar, J. (eds), The acquisition of communicative competence. Baltimore: University Park Press.Google Scholar
Kirsch, K. (1983). The use of directives as indication of status among preschool children. In Fine, S. & Freedle, R. O. (eds), Developmental issues in discourse, Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
Marcos, H. (1987). Communicative functions of pitch range and pitch direction in infants. Journal of Child Language 14, 255–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marcos, H. (1991). Reformulation requests at 18 months: gestures, vocalizations and words. First Language 11, 361–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marcos, H. & Kornhaber-Le Chanu, M. (1992). Learning how to insist and how to clarify. Reformulation requests in the second year. International Journal of Behavioral Development 3, 359–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Menn, L. (1974). Pattern, control and contrast in beginning speech. Unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign.Google Scholar
Newcombe, N. & Zaslow, M. (1981). Do 2½-year-olds hint? A study of directive forms of 2½-year-old-children to adults. Discourse Processes 4, 239–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olsen-Fulero, L. & Conforti, J. (1983). Child responsiveness to mother questions of varying type and presentation. Journal of Child Language 10, 495–520.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Read, B. & Cherry, L. J. (1978). Preschool production of directive forms. Discourse Processes 1, 233–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shatz, M. (1983). Communication. In Flavell, J. F. & Markman, E. (eds), Cognitive development. In Mussen, P. (ed.), Carmichael's manual of child psychology (Fourth edn). New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Shatz, M. & Watson O'Reilly, A. (1990). Conversational or communicative skill? A reassessment of two-year-olds' behaviour in miscommunication episodes. Journal of Child Language 17, 115–30.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Spekman, N. J. & Roth, F. (1985). Children's comprehension and production of directive forms. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 14, 331–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steffensen, M. (1977). Satisfying inquisitive adults: some simple methods of answering yes/no questions. Journal of Child Language 5, 221–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wellman, H. M. & Bartsch, K. (1988). Young children reasoning about belief. Cognition 30, 239–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wellman, H. M. & Woolley, J. D. (1990). From simple desires to ordinary belief: the early development of every day psychology. Cognition 35, 245–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wimmer, H. & Perner, J. (1983). Beliefs about beliefs: representation and constraining function of wrong beliefs in young children's understanding of deception. Cognition 13, 103–28.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wootton, A. J. (1981 a). The management of grantings and rejections by parents in request sequences. Semiotica 37, 39–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wootton, A. J. (1981 b). Some aspects of children's use of ‘Please’ in request sequences. Journal of Pragmatics 5, 511–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar