Assessing pragmatic language functioning in young children
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Daniela K. O’Neill
Abstract
This chapter highlights the growing need and importance of assessing young children’s pragmatic language abilities given such factors as the increasing recognition of disproportionate difficulties in pragmatics among different clinical groups, the rise of more usage-based and functional approaches to language acquisition and competence, and evidence of significant, negative long-term outcomes relating to early pragmatic language impairment. Yet, at the same time, the development of pragmatic measures, and the assessment of pragmatics, is fraught with some quite unique challenges. Some of these challenges will be illustrated with respect to my own experience of developing the Language Use Inventory (LUI), a standardized parent-report measure designed to assess early language use and pragmatics in 18- to 47-month–old children.
Abstract
This chapter highlights the growing need and importance of assessing young children’s pragmatic language abilities given such factors as the increasing recognition of disproportionate difficulties in pragmatics among different clinical groups, the rise of more usage-based and functional approaches to language acquisition and competence, and evidence of significant, negative long-term outcomes relating to early pragmatic language impairment. Yet, at the same time, the development of pragmatic measures, and the assessment of pragmatics, is fraught with some quite unique challenges. Some of these challenges will be illustrated with respect to my own experience of developing the Language Use Inventory (LUI), a standardized parent-report measure designed to assess early language use and pragmatics in 18- to 47-month–old children.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
- The communicative infant from 0-18 months 13
- The development of speech acts 37
- Turn-taking 53
- Conversation Analysis and pragmatic development 71
- Ontogenetic Constraints on Grice’s Theory of Communication 87
- Two Pragmatic Principles in Language Use and Acquisition 105
- Learning conventions and conventionality through conversation 121
- The pragmatics of word learning 139
- The production and comprehension of referring expressions 161
- Scalar Implicature 183
- Children’s pragmatic use of prosodic prominence 199
- The Pragmatic Development of Humor 219
- “The elevator’s buttocks” 239
- Irony production and comprehension 261
- Narrative Development across Cultural Contexts 279
- Children’s understanding of linguistic expressions of certainty and evidentiality 295
- Crosslinguistic and crosscultural approaches to pragmatic development 317
- Atypical pragmatic development 343
- Assessing pragmatic language functioning in young children 363
- Developmental pragmatics 387
- Index 393
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
- The communicative infant from 0-18 months 13
- The development of speech acts 37
- Turn-taking 53
- Conversation Analysis and pragmatic development 71
- Ontogenetic Constraints on Grice’s Theory of Communication 87
- Two Pragmatic Principles in Language Use and Acquisition 105
- Learning conventions and conventionality through conversation 121
- The pragmatics of word learning 139
- The production and comprehension of referring expressions 161
- Scalar Implicature 183
- Children’s pragmatic use of prosodic prominence 199
- The Pragmatic Development of Humor 219
- “The elevator’s buttocks” 239
- Irony production and comprehension 261
- Narrative Development across Cultural Contexts 279
- Children’s understanding of linguistic expressions of certainty and evidentiality 295
- Crosslinguistic and crosscultural approaches to pragmatic development 317
- Atypical pragmatic development 343
- Assessing pragmatic language functioning in young children 363
- Developmental pragmatics 387
- Index 393
