Pragmatic development

1
A child says the word door what could they be
trying to communicate?
2
Pragmatic development

• To know how a child acquires pragmatic
  understanding.
• To explore how children learn to understand the
  unspoken rules of communication.

3
What do we mean by pragmatics?

• Pragmatics is linked to the language study of
  what people mean rather than what they say.
• Areas such as implicature and inference are
  usually what is being referred to in the study of
  pragmatics.
• This is also includes the unspoken rules of
  communication.

4
How pragmatic awareness develops

• As we grow older our understanding of the world
  develops and how people use language changes.
• Consider the following examples
• Asking where the post office is and being told
  its Sunday
• A teacher saying to a student who had just
  dropped a crisp packet theres a bin over there
  you know
• A student says to her friend Mmm nice jacket,
  Are there lots of charity shops around here?

5
The functions of childrens early language

• Study the examples in the table below. Try to
  identify which of Hallidays functions might be
  at work in each utterance