Children do ask, but do not know how to do asking: Epi-pragmatic vs. meta-pragmatic skill

Abstract

Old findings on children's comprehension of ask and tell were subject to different interpretations reflecting progress in the field of language acquisition. We want to show that acquiring a particular skill does not necessarily include competence of its intentional control and use. Development of linguistic skills takes place at different levels starting from early spontaneous, implicit abilities to the level of meta-pragmatic reflexive knowledge that enables deliberate monitoring, planning, and practice. The present study was aimed at exploring two extreme points in development: early epi-pragmatic and late reflexive metapragmatic competence. The first part aims at finding the earliest instances of children spontaneous ability to pass ask-instructions, and the evidence is provided for the ages as early as 22 to 40 months (much earlier than recorded in the previous studies). The second part is experimental and focuses on children's ability to respond to ask- and tell-instructions in the context of a cancelled conversational rule (Gricean Maxim of Quantity) which requires deliberate monitoring and use. The results show that this meta-pragmatic reflexive ability becomes stable only at the age of 6 years.

Idiomas inventados en las narraciones humorísticas de niños de 8 a 12 años

“…Para Gombert (1992: 119-120) "epipragmatic behavior is characterized by the incidental nature of the adaptation of language to its context", mientras que el comportamiento metapragmático que empieza a emerger hacia los 6-7 años "unambiguously reveals reflection on or monitoring of language in terms of the relationship between it and its context of emission". Otros trabajos experimentales, como el de Buđevac et al (2009) han analizado el desarrollo metapragmático en niños de 6 años y lo han hecho con experimentos donde se cancelan las máximas de Grice. Por su parte, Crespo y Alfaro (2009) miden gracias a una prueba empírica el desarrollo de la conciencia metapragmática en niños de 6, 8, 10 y 12 y concluyen que progresivamente van disminuyendo las respuestas automáticas, o epipragmáticas, y aumentan las más conscientes, o metapragmáticas.…”