Means to an end: Strategies in childhood directive comprehension

Liebling, Cheryl Rappaport

Permalink

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/31286 Copy

Description

Title

Means to an end: Strategies in childhood directive comprehension

Author(s)

Liebling, Cheryl Rappaport

Issue Date

1985-09

Keyword(s)

• pragmatic competence
• comprehension of directives
• reciprocity, reflexivity, reasoning

Abstract

This report examines the development of pragmatic competence during the elementary school years. It presents findings of an quasi-experimental study that contrasted first-, third-, and fifth-grade students' comprehension of directives varying in degree of explicitness. The directives were embedded within written and picture book narratives. The children read the written stories and listened to the picture book stories prior to answering questions related to pragmatic relations expressed in the texts. Significant findings indicate that alternative directive processing strategies evolve as children gain experience in varying language choice in different social settings. These strategies, reciprocity, reflexivity, and reasoning, reflect a gradual shift in children's thinking from reliance on situational context to consideration of the relationship of form, function, and context in comprehension. A reasoning processing strategy emerges as children develop a cognitive model of pragmatic relations in conversation. Utilization of such a model appears to be important especially in comprehending inexplicit directives embedded within written narratives.

Publisher

• Champaign, Ill. : University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Center for the Study of Reading.
• Cambridge, Mass. : Bolt Beranek and Newman, Inc.

Series/Report Name or Number

Center for the Study of Reading Technical Report ; no. 341

Type of Resource

text

Language

eng

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/31286

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 1985 Board of Trustees University of Illinois

Owning Collections