Article
Children's understanding of conversational principles
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
(1984)
Abstract
Sixteen preschool, first-, and third-grade children were presented with short stories ending with a verbal statement by a story character. Two alternative ending statements were provided. One alternative violated a postulate (H. P. Grice, 1975, in P. Cole & J. Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and Semantics (Vol. 3), New York: Academic Press) or a reasonable request condition (D. Gordon & G. Lakoff, 1971, Conversational postulates, papers from the seventh regional meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, University of Chicago, Department of Linguistics), while the other alternative did not. The child's task was to choose the “funny or silly“ ending, i.e., the violation. Data analysis showed that 100% of the third-graders, 83% of the first-graders, and 19% of the preschoolers performed with significant (P < .02) accuracy. These results suggest that children's understanding of conversational principles improves considerably between preschool and first grade. There were no significant differences among four types of conversational principles examined.
Disciplines
Publication Date
December, 1984
DOI
10.1016/0022-0965(84)90088-2
Citation Information
Daniel J. Conti and Linda A. Camras. "Children's understanding of conversational principles" Journal of Experimental Child Psychology Vol. 38 Iss. 3 (1984) p. 456 - 463 ISSN: 0022-0965 Available at: http://works.bepress.com/linda_camras/64/