1. Pragmatic Development
Berko Gleason Ch 6
Outline of the class
What is linguistic competence?
What is communicative competence?
(pragmatics)
The importance of communicative
competence
Speech acts
Requests: an important type of speech acts
Ineffective communication and how to help
What does it take to be an effective
communicator?
Knowing how to pronounce?
Vocabulary knowledge?
Knowledge of the rules of
syntax?
Linguistic competence
Knowing a language
The ability to produce and
understand well-formed,
well-
meaningful sentences

2. What does it take to be an effective
communicator?
Communicative competence is also
important for an effective communicator
What is communicative
competence (Pragmatics)?
Pragmatics: Knowledge about the
Pragmatics:
communicative function of language and the
conventions that govern the use of language in
order to communicate.
Learning how to make language work in interactions
with others
For example, understand that language has to be contextually
appropriate.
Do you have an example of a contextually inappropriate use of
language?
What is communicative
competence (Pragmatics)?
Effective communication requires pragmatic
knowledge; or sometimes named as discourse
knowledge and sociolinguistic knowledge.
Discourse knowledge concerns the use of language in
units larger than a sentence (conversations, narratives)
Sociolinguistic knowledge concerns how language
use varies as a function of sociological variables (status,
culture, gender etc.)

3. The Importance of Communicative
Competence
Predictive of later literacy skills, why?
Necessary to function in classroom and in
life
Associated with being liked more by peers
and adults
Speech Acts (John Austin)
What are speech acts?
Speech acts refer to sentences that not only
describe or report information, but also help
speakers accomplish things.
e.g., I warn you that a hurricane in arriving
soon.
Speech acts include orders, requests,
warnings, verdicts, promises, and apologies.
Components of Speech Acts
Components Definition
Locutionary act Form
Illocutionary act Intended function
Perlocutionary act Effect
e.g., “It’s hot here”, what are the 3 acts?

4. Speech Acts
The intended function of language may be
different from its form and its literal meaning.
Often context is needed in order to determine
what the function of a sentence might be.
Generate a couple of examples
Language in Social Contexts
When learning language, children must
not only be able to create language in an
understandable form (locution) but must
also understand that speakers have an
intent (illocutionary force) and what is
spoken has an effect (perlocution).
(perlocution).
Language is not communicative if it has no
intent and no effect.
Requests: an important type of
speech acts
Exemplify the distinctions of three components of
speech acts.
Can vary greatly:
Indirect requests: “The telephone is ringing”
requests:
Direct request: “Answer telephone”
request:
A direct request with a semantic aggravator:
aggravator:
“Answer the telephone right now”
A direct request with a semantic mitigator: “could
mitigator:
you please answer the telephone”

5. Do Preschoolers Understand
Indirect Requests?
Research has shown that children as young as
two years old understand indirect requests.
They can respond appropriately or refuse to comply
May develop this understanding so early
because indirect requests are very common in
everyday speech.
Maybe differ between cultures
Studies show that African-American children in
African-
schools are not as responsive to indirect requests
Requests and Status
If you were to ask me for help with class
material how would you word your request?
If you were the teacher asking a student to see
you after class, how would you word your
request?
Adults and children as young as preschool use
direct requests with semantic aggravators to
listeners of lower status
Adults and children as young as preschool use
indirect requests with semantic mitigators to
listeners of higher status
Ineffective Communication in
Preschool
Preschoolers are not inherently egocentric
but are more likely than either older
children or adults to behave so.

6. Ineffective Communication in
Preschool
Preschoolers have problems with deictic terms
Terms that point to components of a situation but do not
actually name them.
“I,” “you,” are acquired earliest
“here”, “there” are difficult.
Preschoolers also have problems sustaining a
conversation, taking turns in a conversation, and
do not yet fully understand conversations over the
telephone.
Here we see examples of egocentrism
Individual differences
Gender: young girls tend to use more
collaborative, supportive and mitigated
speech styles than young boys
Siblings:
first-born children – more advanced lexical
first-
and grammatical skills
Later-born children – more developed
Later-
conversational skills
Why?
Language and ethnicity: African
American Vernacular English
Ebonics (AAVE)
(AAVE)
Has its phonological, syntactic, and
pragmatic features
What is your opinion about teaching
Standard English (SE) in class but also
taking AAVE into consideration?
In what setting is inappropriate to use AAVE?

7. How to help children learn to
communicate effectively?
Encourage children to talk
Explicitly teach some rules governing
communication
Prompts
Modeling
Reinforcement
(more see Table 6.2 p.209)