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Interpreting and responding to spoken language: children's recognition and use of a speaker's goal*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Leonard Abbeduto ,
Jill Bibler Nuccio ,
Radhi Al-Mabuk ,
Pamela Rotto  and
Fay Maas
Leonard Abbeduto*
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Jill Bibler Nuccio
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Radhi Al-Mabuk
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Pamela Rotto
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Fay Maas
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin-Madison
*
Department of Educational Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1025 W., Johnson, Madison, WI 53706, USA.
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Abstract

This study had two purposes. The first was to examine age differences in the extent to which children infer and use a speaker's interpersonal goal to understand speech acts. To this end, the subjects responded to Do you have…? requests in a role-playing task. The goal behind such a request is implicit in the speaker's choice of noun phrase. We sought to determine whether children, like adults, use the noun phrase to infer the speaker's goal and thereby decide whether the request is a yes-no question or a directive. The second purpose was to examine age differences in the extent to which children select responses that carry implications appropriate to the speaker's interpersonal goal. To do this, Do you have… ? requests containing general category labels were addressed to the children when they possessed all the category exemplars and when they possessed only a few exemplars. A simple yes implies that the listener has nearly all exemplars and, therefore, is inappropriate for the speaker's goal in the latter situation. The subjects were six-, seven-, nine-, and eleven-year-olds and adults, with 12 subjects per age. Only the eleven-year-olds and the adults used the speaker's noun phrase and considered the implications of yes.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , October 1992 , pp. 677 - 693
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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Footnotes

*

This research was supported by NICHD grant HD24356 to L. Abbeduto and by NICHD grant HD03352 to the Waisman Center on Mental Retardation and Human Development. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development in Kansas City in 1989. We are grateful to the Madison Metropolitan School District, especially Dr Lee Gruenwald and Jack Jorgensen. Thanks also to Terry McMenamin who helped prepare the experimental materials and to Katherine Short and Glenis Benson who assisted with the data collection. Finally, we are indebted to the students, staff and parents of the following schools: Horicon Elementary, Marquette Elementary, Schenk Elementary, Schenk Middle, St Dennis Elementary, St Maria Goretti Elementary and the Waisman Center Kindergarten.

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