Young Children Understand the Normative Implications of Future-Directed Speech Acts

Abstract

Much recent research has shown that the capacity for mental time travel and temporal reasoning emerges during the preschool years. Nothing is known so far, however, about young children's grasp of the normative dimension of future-directed thought and speech. The present study is the first to show that children from age 4 understand the normative outreach of such future-directed speech acts: subjects at time 1 witnessed a speaker make future-directed speech acts about/towards an actor A, either in imperative mode (“A, do X!”) or as a prediction (“the actor A will do X”). When at time 2 the actor A performed an action that did not match the content of the speech act at time 1, children identified the speaker as the source of a mistake in the prediction case, and the actor as the source of the mistake in the imperative case and leveled criticism accordingly. These findings add to our knowledge about the emergence and development of temporal cognition in revealing an early sensitivity to the normative aspects of future-orientation.

Children's Selective Trust in Promises

“…Specifically, 5‐year‐olds distinguished between speakers that promised and helped and those who only helped, indicating that, under some conditions, children take both the promise speech act and the action into account. In line with other recent work (Lohse, Gräfenhain, Behne, & Rakoczy, ; Rakoczy & Tomasello, ), we show that a more sophisticated understanding of speech acts emerges already in the (late) preschool years and thus earlier than previously claimed (Astington, 1988a, 1988b; Rotenberg, ).…”

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

“…Yet, a series of related studies has shown that preschoolers direct their protest at actors for failing to follow a directive (e.g., ''Put the red thing there!") and at speakers for failing to make accurate predictions or assertions (e.g., ''The red thing is/will be there") (Lohse, Gräfenhain, Behne, & Rakoczy, 2014;Rakoczy & Tomasello, 2009). Taken together, this indicates that young children may have a more nuanced understanding of speech acts and speakers' responsibility than was previously assumed.…”

The Form and Function of Local Language in Directive Speech Act at A University in Central Sulawesi

“…Various research based on the class interaction shows the type of directive act of speech act variation, which usually used in interaction as well as in university level. These are showed in some research findings of directive speech act conducted by Shvartzman (2015), Field (2001), Beck (2008), Lohse (2014), George (2014), Arani (2012), Welvi (2015) Muhartoyo andKristian (2013), andPrayitno (2009).…”

“…It is also found by Lohse (2014) that the directive speech acts about/ towards an actor A. Either in imperative mode (A do X) or as a prediction (the actor A will do X).…”