Pragmatics and Metalinguistics Flashcards
Pragmatics belong in what sector of the FCU model?
Use
3 levels of pragmatics for dx and tx
Utterance
Discourse
Social and Cultural Conventions
Development of pragmatic abilities is dependent upon ___________
development of all other language subsystems
What is it called when pragmatic expectations depend on who you’re talking to, in what context, and/or for what purpose?
Contextually dependent
How are schemes and scripts engrained in pragmatics?
take Halloween for example- trick or treating. Scheme includes kids in costumes go up to a strangers door, ring/knock on the door and then when the door opens, the kids say “trick or treat”, (sometimes the person at the door with make conversation- about the costume/scaring them/etc.), then they get candy, and then the child says thank you and walk away! The script is the verbal interaction, trick or treat, convo exchange, saying thank you
Utterance level: Frames are ______
the communicative intent
Types of frames
persuade
deceive
test
negotiate
argue
fantasize
play
entertain
inform
Frames in early childhood include
play/fantasy
humor
deception
argument
Play/fantasy example
when they’re playing in the house and assign roles to everyone. Even our 3–4-year-olds can set up utterances in this way
Humor example
requires setting up for listeners to participate- like knock knock jokes; really young kids will say “knock-knock” and listener will say “who’s there” “orange “orange who” “knock-knock” “who’s there” “banana” yada, yada but kids won’t deliver the final punchline “orange you glad I didn’t say banana” but might just say orange, they’ll laugh and then you’ll laugh because they’re laughing
Deception example
kids eating dog food, mouths full, and they tell parents NO! We haven’t been eating the dog food!
Direct and indirect speech acts include ___________
Politeness
Politeness in our culture is _________
finding the place between direct and indirect speech
Indirect politeness
Indirect happy medium “man some pancakes sound really yummy”
Direct politeness
Direct “make me some pancakes”
Medium politeness
“Pancakes sound so yummy, could you make me some if you have time?”
Too indirect politeness
“those pancakes we had at Disney last year were so yummy”
Discourse level can be ____________
analyzed
Conversational discourse is also known as
dialogue
Grice’s Conversational Postulates
Quantity
Quality
Relation
Manner
Quantity:
you have to say enough, but not too much
Quality:
within a conversation, your contribution should be verifiable and true- if your communicative content is to deceive you are violating this conversational postulate by saying things that are untrue purposefully
Relation:
Should be relative or associated to the topic at hand
Manner:
should be appropriate to the context (talking to grandma- be polite and don’t use swear words vs talking to your BFF at a bar at 1 am- you can say whatever you want in whatever way you want (slang, swearing, being vulgar, talk about explicates, etc)
Conversational Repairs
Conversational Pairs: ability to repair breakdowns- trying to communicate something and it doesn’t work- what do you do next?
Young children don’t realize communication breakdowns or that their message didn’t get across, so what happens as a result?
Since they have limited ability to fix it, there’s not really much that can be done… so kids will say it again and again, louder and louder until they breakdown and cry.
How do proficient language users go about conversational repairs?
Can repair conversations on the fly and reword things to better convey meaning.
Scripts:
In a certain context there are certain options you can use to communicate- that is the use of scripts
Discourse levels: 2 kinds
Conversational discourse (dialogue) and Narrative discourse (monologue)
Social and cultural conventions
Language is an arbitrary, standardized, conventional set of rules and symbols that we as language users must follow to match the culture we are communicating within in order to convey a specific meaning for a specific purpose.
Linguistic Chauvinism (ethnocentrism)
What you have experienced is what everyone should experience (the way you or your culture uses language is the only correct way)
Registers
Volitional, within speaker differences
The words and sentence patterns you choose fall within this spectrum
Spectrum of Environment
Formal or unfamiliar vs informal or intimate
Spectrum of listener
sophisticated to naive
Registers start developing ________
early and mature later and develop throughout the school years and hopefully longer
Registers require….
syntactic abilities, semantic abilities, contextual awareness, and practice!
Registers include voluntary changes in how we speak based upon what factors
syntactic abilities, semantic abilities, contextual awareness, and practice!
Dialects are differing across…
Regional, Socio-economic (SES), racial, gender
Dialects are shared by….
Groups of people, intrapersonal.
Dialects are not so different that…
People from different dialects can still communicate with one another. Variations can be understood by speakers of the same language
Code Switching may occur ___________
across speaker
Development of the code switching theory can be recognized as ________
a way that an individual changes the way they use language- now an appropriate form of language use.
Example of code switching
A speaker who has the option of more than 1 language or dialect, when they can choose among those appropriately and use them that is fabulous, if there is a communication challenge (skills in one lang or dialect do not meet needs in that situation) they can support their communication by code switching and supplementing with piece from a different language/dialect
Metalinguistics are
when we use language to think or talk about language and recognizing that language itself is a thing that can be changed or operated upon. Meta means abstract reasoning about language
Linguistic intuition (implicit knowledge) is ….
the ability to speak is one level of language ability, then there is implicit and the acceptability of communications
3 types of metalinguistic skills are _______
Linguistic intuition, grammaticality judgement, and developmental trajectory
Developmental trajectory develops when _________
All other language subsystems have been developed
Developmental trajectory includes _______________________
Early grammaticality judgements based on content & Gradual development
Gradual development
emerge in preschool, full awareness later (meta-awareness acquired AFTER mastery of the form, ability to correct regular and irregular verbs around 6 years. Dependent upon development of other subsystems)
Ex of Early grammaticality judgements based on content-
“Her liked the cookies”
“Daddy painted the fence”
Metalinguistics may be essential for ________
Semantic Organization
Metalinguistic development is inter-related with…
- Language Use
- Cognitive Development
- Reading Ability
- Academic Achievement
- Stimulation and Play
