Session 7: The rules of conversation and how to break them

Introduction

We have come a long way from where we began the language learning journey. Children have learned what the sounds are in their language, how to share attention with others, read their communicative intentions, and how to speak and gesture. They have learned where the words are, what they mean, and what combinations of words are conventional. Now they need to take all they have learned and apply it to the next set of challenges.

In this session you will consider some of the pragmatic aspects of communication that children learn. The basic linguistic building blocks of words and grammar are largely in place and the psychological foundations of shared attention and intention reading have long since been acquired. What children start doing next is building on this, learning the linguistic conventions around dialogue, narratives, figurative language use and information structure. The long developmental trajectory of these abilities is an indication of how complex they are to learn. You will see that the development of these abilities is closely linked with the development of children’s conceptual knowledge, knowledge of other minds, information-processing abilities and their experience with caregivers.

By the end of this session, you should be able to:

• describe the acquisition of metaphor, irony and lying
• understand the role of information structure and common ground
• explain the development of storytelling
• consider the role of relevance in communication.