Promises in French children: Comprehension and metapragmatic knowledge

Bernicot, Josie; Laval, Virginie

doi:10.1016/0378-2166(94)00075-5

Cited by 31 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…This is in line with previous work on French-speaking children's understanding of promises and future-directed commissive speech acts (''I will do it"; Bernicot & Laval, 1996), and it supports theoretical work arguing that using the word ''promise" is not a necessary condition for an utterance to count as a verbal commitment (Searle, 1969).…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 87%

“…can fulfill the same function (Searle, 1969). In fact, developmental work has shown that 3-to 10-year-old French children view future-directed speech acts (''I will do it") and assertions with a predictive content (''It will be done") as promises (Bernicot & Laval, 1996). However, under some circumstances, such as when statements containing ''promise" and ''will" provide conflicting evidence (e.g., regarding the location of a hidden toy), older but not younger children trust ''promise" statements more than ''will" statements (Lyon & Evans, 2014).…”

Section: P Kanngiesser Et Al / Journal Of Experimental Child Psychomentioning

confidence: 99%

“…From 7 years of age, children reason that speakers are responsible for fulfilling what they promised (Astington, 1988c;Maas & Abbeduto, 1998) and take into account whether someone broke a promise (or a commitment) intentionally or accidentally (Maas & Abbeduto, 2001;Mant & Perner, 1988). But it is not until their teens that (English-and French-speaking) children begin to distinguish promises (''I promise I will play with you") from other types of speech acts such as predictions (''I promise it will rain") and assertions (''I promise, it rained") (Astington, 1988b;Bernicot & Laval, 1996).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Young children mostly keep, and expect others to keep, their promises

Kanngießer

Köymen

Tomasello

2017

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

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a b s t r a c tPromises are speech acts that create an obligation to do the promised action. In three studies, we investigated whether 3-and 5-year-olds (N = 278) understand the normative implications of promising in prosocial interactions. In Study 1, children helped a partner who promised to share stickers. When the partner failed to uphold the promise, 3-and 5-year-olds protested and referred to promise norms. In Study 2, when children in this same age range were asked to promise to continue a cleaning task-and they agreed-they persisted longer on the task and mentioned their obligation more frequently than without such a promise. They also persisted longer after a promise than after a cleaning reminder (Study 3). In prosocial interactions, thus, young children feel a normative obligation to keep their promises and expect others to keep their promises as well.Ó 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. IntroductionPromises express commitments to future actions. Austin (1975) was the first to systematically describe promises as speech acts, highlighting that they are more than mere words but also a way http://dx

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 87%

Section: P Kanngiesser Et Al / Journal Of Experimental Child Psychomentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Young children mostly keep, and expect others to keep, their promises

Kanngießer

Köymen

Tomasello

2017

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

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“…The processes observed here are comparable to those described by Ackerman (1983), Bemicot (1992) and Bemicot & Legros (1987) for the comprehension of requests by 3-and 4-year-olds, and by Bernicot & Laval (1996) for the comprehension of commissives by children aged 3, 6 and 10. These processes include the use of the context as the first criterion for interpreting the utterance and then, whenever that context is unclear or not very informative, the interpretation is based on the linguistic characteristics of the utterance.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Comprehension of directives in young children: influence of social situation and linguistic form

Babelot

Marcos

1999

First Language

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The purpose of this study was to analyse the emergence and development of the ability to relate message form to the production context during the transition between the prelinguistic period and the linguistic period. The study focuses on utterances used to express a request, directly or indirectly. Two groups of 20 children aged 1;7 and 2;5 were observed in a play situation with the experimenter who produced four types of requests: imperative, embedded imperative, expression of a desire and question directive. Each type of utterance was produced twice, once referring to an object that was relevant to the current activity and once referring to an object that was irrelevant. The main results showed that (1) the context of the utterance had an influence on the children's responses by the middle of the second year, and (2) children aged two-and-a-half are able to relate the context of an utterance to its form.Interpersonal communication can take place only if each participant can understand the other person's social intentions by relating the message content and/or form to the production context. The purpose of the present study was to analyse the emergence and initial development of the ability to establish this relationship. In other words, we shall look at the development of speech comprehension from a pragmatic standpoint. The study focuses on utterances used to express a request directly or indirectly.

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“…Children from age 5 may comprehend promises, whereas those at age 6 are able to correctly identify obligation even if the target action is not accomplished (Bernicot & Laval, 1996;Maas, 2008), and finally, at age 7, children become sensitive to the promisor's intention in responsibility assignment of broken promises (Maas & Abbeduto, 2001). First, power symmetry in the peer-child context facilitated identification of a superordinate violator as compared to mother-child conditional promises.…”

Section: Age Differencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Children's understanding of conditional promise contract violations

Chin

Lin

2018

Infant and Child Development

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Recent studies have suggested that young children readily understand contract violations that have a prescriptive element. However, prior research has only investigated social contracts where the child is being addressed. In the current study, we reversed the child's role to the speaker (the party initiating a contract) and investigated the capability of young children to detect the violator of conditional promises. Children aged 5 to 7 were presented with scenarios in which conditional promises were made between a child protagonist and a parent or a superordinate peer. When the child in the story was the addressee, older children were better able to identify a superordinate party as a violator. Children were better able to detect a superordinate violator in stories where the conditional promise was made with a peer. Children's identification of a subordinate violation varied as a function of age and story type. In evaluating not p and not q situations, older children were better able to ignore power asymmetry to identify a superordinate violator or bilateral violation when the child in the story was the speaker. These findings reveal that young children are sensitive to the role of the speaker and obligations in a social contract. Highlights This study aimed to investigate the capability of young children to detect the violator of conditional promises. The results showed a three‐way interaction among the context, the status of the violating party, and the child's role as speaker or addressee. These findings further our understanding of the deontic advantage and the impact of various types of conditional promises made with superordinates in daily life.

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Promises in French children: Comprehension and metapragmatic knowledge

Cited by 31 publications

References 20 publications

Young children mostly keep, and expect others to keep, their promises

Young children mostly keep, and expect others to keep, their promises

Comprehension of directives in young children: influence of social situation and linguistic form

Children's understanding of conditional promise contract violations

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