Hostname: page-component-7dd5485656-g8tfn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-10-30T23:09:25.976Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Conversational or communicative skill? A reassessment of two-year-olds' behaviour in miscommunication episodes*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Marilyn Shatz  and
Anne Watson O'Reilly
Marilyn Shatz*
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
Anne Watson O'Reilly
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
*
Human Performance Center, 330 Packard Rd.University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Young children's competence in using and responding to clarification requests may reflect their desire to achieve goals through the direction of others rather than knowledge that messages must be understood by another mind. This possibility was addressed by examining miscommunication episodes between children aged 2;6 and their parents in videotaped free play sessions. Although the children generally responded appropriately in form to parental clarification requests, they responded more often to and resolved successfully more of those following their own requests than those following their assertions. Thus, the results support the idea that young children are frequently motivated to repair their utterances when they have not achieved some overt behaviour desired from others. These findings are discussed in the light of the conversational experience two-year-olds bring to clarification situations.

Information

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , February 1990 , pp. 131 - 146
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

*

Acknowledgements: We wish to thank Louise Cherry Wilkinson for her generosity in providing us access to her videotapes and transcripts, and Marilyn McDermott for her assistance in coding for reliability.

References

REFERENCES

Anselmi, D., Tomasello, M. & Acunzo, M. (1986). Young children's responses to neutral and specific contingent queries. Journal of Child Language 13. 135–44.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Astington, J., Harris, P. & Olson, D. (eds) (1988). Developing theories of mind. Cambridge: C.U.P.Google Scholar
Bartsch, K. & Wellman, H. M. (1989). Young children's attribution of action to beliefs and desires. Child Development 60. 946–64.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brinton, B., Fujiki, M., Loeb, D. & Winkler, E. (1986). Development of conversational repair strategies in response to requests for clarification. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 29. 75–81.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bruner, J. (1974). The ontogenesis of speech acts. Journal of Child Language 2. 1–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cherry, L. (1979). The role of adults' requests for clarification in the language development of children. In Freedle, D. (ed.) New directions in discourse processing, vol. 2. Norwood NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
Cicourel, A. V. (1973). Cognitive sociology. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
Corsaro, W. A. (1977). The clarification request as a feature of adult-interactive styles with young children. Language in Society 6. 183–207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Demetras, M. J., Post, K. N. & Snow, C. E. (1986). Feedback to first language learners: the role of repetitions and clarification questions. Journal of Child Language 13. 275–92.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Flavell, J. H. (1988). The development of children's knowledge about mind: from cognitive connections to mental representations. In Astington, J. W., Harris, P. & Olson, D. (eds), Developing theories of mind. Cambridge: C.U.P.Google Scholar
Flavell, J. H., Shipstead, S. G. & Croft, K. (1978). Young children's knowledge about visual perception: hiding objects from others. Child Development 49, 1208–11.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gallagher, T. (1977). Revision behaviors in the speech of normal children developing language. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 20. 303–18.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gallagher, T. (1981). Contingent query sequences within adult-child discourse. Journal of Child Language 8. 51–62.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Garvey, C. (1977). The contingent query: a dependent act in conversation. In Lewis, M. & Rosenblum, L. (eds), Interaction, conversation and the development of language. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Golinkoff, R. M. (1983). The preverbal negotiation of failed messages: insights into the transition period. In Golinkoff, R. M. (ed.), The transition from prelinguistic to linguistic communication. New Jersey: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Golinkoff, R. M. (1986). ‘I beg your pardon?’: the preverbal negotiation of failed messages. Journal of Child Language 13. 455–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keenan, E. (1974). Conversational competence in children. Journal of Child Language 1. 163–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Konefal, J. & Stokes, J. (1984). Linguistic analysis of children's conversational repairs. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 13. 1–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Markman, E. M. (1981). Comprehension monitoring. In Dickson, W. P. (ed.), Children's oral communication skills. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
McDonald, L. & Pien, D. (1982). Mother conversational behaviour as a function of interactional intent. Journal of Child Language 9. 337–58.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Olsen-Kulero, L. (1982). Style and stability in mother conversational behaviour: a study of individual differences. Journal of Child Language 9. 543–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olsen-Fulero, L. & Conforti, J. (1983). Child responsiveness to mother questions of varying type and presentation. Journal of Child Language 10. 495–520.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Revelle, G., Wellman, H. & Karabenick, J. (1985). Comprehension monitoring in preschool children. Child Development 56. 654–63.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Robinson, E. (1981). Conversational tactics and the advancement of the child's understanding about referential communication. In Robinson, W. (ed.), Communication in development. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Robinson, E. & Whittaker, S. J. (1985). Children's responses to ambiguous messages and their understanding of ambiguity. Developmental Psychology 21. 446–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shatz, M. (1978). On the development of communicative understandings: an early strategy for interpreting and responding to messages. Cognitive Psychology 10. 271–301.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shatz, M. (1983 a). Communication. In Flavell, J. and Markman, E. (eds), Cognitive development. In Mussen, P. (gen. ed.), Carmichael's manual of child psychology. Fourth edition. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Shatz, M. (1983 b). On transition, continuity and coupling: an alternative approach to communicative development. In Golinkoff, R. M. (ed.), The transition from prelinguistic to linguistic communication. Hillsdale NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Shatz, M. (1987). Bootstrapping operations in child language. In Nelson, K. & VanKleeck, A. (eds), Children's language, vol. 6. Hillsdale NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Shatz, M. & McClosky, L. (1983). Answering appropriately: a developmental perspective on conversational knowledge. In Kuczaj, S. (ed.), Discourse development. New York: Springer-Verlag.Google Scholar
Shatz, M., Wellman, H. & Silber, S. (1983). The acquisition of mental verbs: a systematic investigation of the first reference to mental state. Cognition 14. 301–21.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Snow, C. (1977). The development of conversation between mothers and babies. Journal of Child Language 4. 1–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomasello, M., Farrar, M. & Dines, J. (1984). Children's speech revisions for a familiar and unfamiliar adult. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 27. 359–63.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wellman, H. M. (1988). First steps in the child's theorizing about the mind. In Astington, J. W., Harris, P. & Olson, D. (eds), Developing theories of mind. Cambridge: C.U.P.Google Scholar
Wells, G. (1981). Becoming a communicator. In Wells, G. (ed.), Learning through interaction: the study of language development. Cambridge: C.U.P.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilcox, M. & Webster, E. (1980). Early discourse behaviour: an analysis of children's responses to listener feedback. Child Development 51. 1120–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilkinson, L. C, Hiebert, E. & Rembold, K. (1981). Parents' and peers' communication to toddlers. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 24. 382–8.Google ScholarPubMed
Yaniv, I. & Shatz, M. (1988). Children's understanding of perceptibility. In Astington, J., Harris, P. & Olson, D. (eds), Developing theories of mind. Cambridge: C.U.P.Google Scholar