Introducing information in dialogues: forms of introduction chosen by young speakers and the responses elicited from young listeners

Abstract

Young speakers in dialogue must establish mutual knowledge. Traditionally, researchers have focused on how children used indefinite and definite articles to signal novel and shared information. In this study of 170 children aged seven to thirteen, the form of introduction chosen, whether question or statement, is more significant than the type of article used. No developmental effects on article use emerge, with statement + indefinite always the least common choice. However, young speakers use question introductions significantly less than older children. There is also a developmental interaction between speakers' and listeners' behaviour. Question introduction elicit effective listener responses at all ages, but only twelve-year-olds respond reliably to statements. Unfortunately, young speakers prefer just those forms of introduction to which young listeners are least likely to provide informative feedback. Thus two separate developmental effects appear to combine to hamper young subjects' chances of achieving successful communication in dialogues.

The form and function of speech act exchanges in children's dyadic interactions

“…The question elicitation sequences (A, D -> Q) increased with age. This finding is similar to that of Anderson, Clark, and Mullin (1991) who found that 7-and 8-year-old children were less likely to ask their partner a question to establish common ground that were older (9-to 13-year-old) children. Instead, they relied on other kinds of speech acts, such as statements.…”

Forms of introduction in dialogues: Their discourse contexts and communicative consequences

“…Using the same objective scoring system to test map accuracy which we had developed in our studies of children's communication (Anderson, Clark & Mullin, 1989;1991b), we assessed the performance of all the pairs in our sample. The completed instruction followers' maps produced in each performance were compared to the corresponding original.…”

Creating a communication system from scratch: gesture beats vocalization hands down

“…As in most human communication studies, participants were not given explicit feedback with regard to their communication success (e.g., Clark and Wilkes-Gibbs, 1986; Garrod and Anderson, 1987; Anderson et al, 1991; Garrod et al, 2007). All communication was recorded using a pair of digital video cameras (one trained on each participant).…”