Conversational Implicature in Children's Referential Communication

Contemporary theories of language comprehension emphasize the importance of listeners' active, cognitive contributions to message meaning. A major class of contributions is the listener's knowledge of the conventions of language use (Rule Knowledge). H. P. Grice has described some abstract conventional structures which serve as both a productive and interpretive framework for conversation: the Cooperative Principle (CP) and its maxims of Quality, Quantity, Relation, and Manner. That children's referential communication deviates from the CP is very well-documented: the Quantity Maxim, which requires speakers to give as much information as the listener needs but not more, seems lacking in both the speaking and listening skills of grade school children. As speakers, children often give descriptions which do not provide the listener with enough information to make unambiguous choices, and as listeners, they seem to be unaware that they lack important information. The dominant view of children's comprehension is that they remain unaware of message ambiguities and so respond idiosyncratically. This thesis attempts to show that grade school children do in fact apply conventional stuctures like the Quantity Maxim in their efforts to make sense of poor messages.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Speech Communication

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Jackson, Sally A.

• Psychology, Developmental

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

(UMI)AAI8108553

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/77096