Vocabulary Development - Pragmatic Development

Pragmatic Development

Both linguistic and socio-cultural factors affect the rate at which vocabulary develops. Children must learn to use their words appropriately and strategically in social situations. They have flexible and powerful social-cognitive skills that allow them to understand the communicative intentions of others in a wide variety of interactive situations. Children learn new words in communicative situations. Children rely on pragmatic skills to build more extensive vocabularies. Some aspects of pragmatic behaviour can predict later literacy and mathematical achievement, as children who are pragmatically skilled often function better in school. These children are also generally better liked.

Children use words differently for objects, spatial relations and actions. Children ages one to three often rely on general purpose deictic words such was 'here', 'that' or 'look' accompanied by a gesture, which is most often pointing, to pick out specific objects. Children also stretch already known or partly known words to cover other objects that appear similar to the original. This can result in word overextension or misuses of words. Word overextension is governed by the perceptual similarities children notice among the different referents. Misuses of words indirectly provide ways of finding out which meanings children have attached to particular words. When children come into contact with spatial relations, they talk about the location of one object with respect to another. They name the object located and use a deictic term, such as here or there for location, or they name both the object located and its location. They can also use a general purpose locative marker, which is a preposition, postposition or suffix depending on the language that is linked in some way to the word for location. Children's earliest words for actions usually encode both the action and its result. Children use a small number of general purpose verbs, such as do and make for a large variety of actions because their resources are limited. Children acquiring a second language seem to use the same production strategies for talking about actions. Sometimes children use a highly specific verb instead of a general purpose verb. In both cases children stretch their resources to communicate what they want to say.

Infants use words to communicate early in life and their communication skills develop as they grow older. Communication skills aid in word learning. Infants learn to take turns while communicating with adults. While preschoolers lack precise timing and rely on obvious speaker cues, older children are more precise in their timing and take fewer long pauses. Children get better at initiating and sustaining coherent conversations as they age age. Toddlers and preschoolers use strategies such as repeating and recasting their partners' utterances to keep the conversation going. Older children add new relevant information to conversations. Connectives such as then, so, and because are more frequently used as children get older. When giving and responding to feedback, preschoolers are inconsistent, but around the age of six, children can mark corrections with phrases and head nods to indicate their continued attention. As children continue to age they provide more constructive interpretations back to listeners, which helps prompt conversations.