Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-hvd4g Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-11T01:51:07.990Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Conversational competence in children*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Elinor O. Keenan
Elinor O. Keenan
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Observations of early morning conversations between twin boys (2;9 at onset of research) indicate that young children are able to sustain a coherent dialogue over a number of turns. Contrary to the views of Piaget (1926), the interlocutors generally attend to one another's utterances. Coherence is achieved to a large extent by attending to the form of one another's utterances. Extended exchanges are maintained by speakers focusing on a sequence of sounds (sound play) or a constituent within an antecedent turn and reproducing it (with or without modification) in the next turn.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , November 1974 , pp. 163 - 183
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1974

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.)

References

REFERENCES

Bloom, L. (1970). Language development. Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T.Google Scholar
Braine, M. (1965). Three suggestions regarding grammatical analyses of children's language. Paper presented at the Tenth Annual Conference on Linguistics of the Linguistic Circle of New York.Google Scholar
Bruner, J. (1975). The ontogenesis of speech acts. JChLang 2.Google Scholar
Chao, Y. R. (1951). The Cantian idiolect. Semitic and Oriental Studies 11. 27–44.Google Scholar
Ervin-Tripp, S. (1973). Language acquisition and communicative choice. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Escalona, S. (1973). Basic modes of social interaction: their emergence and patterning during the first two years of life. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly (July).Google Scholar
Goffman, E. (1971). Relations in public. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Grice, P. (1968). Logic and conversation (manuscript).Google Scholar
Grice, P. (1969). Utterer's meaning and intentions. The Philosophical Review (April).Google Scholar
Halliday, M. A. K. (1973). Explorations in the functions of language. London: Arnold.Google Scholar
Halliday, M. A. K. (forthcoming). Learning how to mean. In Lenneberg, E. & Lenneberg, E. (eds), Foundations of language development: a multi-disciplinary approach. UNESCO/IBRO.Google Scholar
Hymes, D. (1972). On communicative competence. In Pride, J. B. & Holmes, J. (eds), Sociolinguistics. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
Jakobson, R. (1960). Linguistics and poetics. In Sebeok, T. A. (ed.), Style in language. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Jakobson, R. (1968). Child language, aphasia and phonological universals. The Hague: Mouton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jespersen, O. (1922). Language, its nature, development and origin. London: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Kingdon, R. (1958). The groundwork of English intonation. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Kohlberg, L., Yaeger, J. & Hjertholm, E. (1968). Private speech: four studies and a review of theories. ChD 39. 691–736.Google Scholar
Lewis, D. (1969). Convention. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Piaget, J. (1926). The language and thought of the child. New York: Harcourt Brace.Google Scholar
Piaget, J. (1951). Play, dreams and imitation in childhood. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Richards, M. (1971). Social interaction in the first weeks of human life. PsychiatNeurolNeurochir 14. 35–42.Google Scholar
Ross, A. I. F. (1968). Directives and norms. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Ryan, J. (1972). Interpretation and imitation in early language development. Paper for Conference on Constraints on Learning,Cambridge (April).Google Scholar
Ryan, J. (1974). Early language development: towards a communicational analysis. In Richards, M. P. M. (ed.), The integration of a child into a social world. London: C.U.P.Google Scholar
Schegloff, E. (1968). Sequencing in conversational openings. AmA 70. 1075–95.Google Scholar
Weir, R. (1970). Language in the crib. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar