9 Summary of Session 7

In this session you looked at some of the pragmatics of language use and the kinds of shared understanding speakers have of one another in conversation. Children have mastered many of the ‘nuts and bolts’ of language by now – grammar, sounds, words and meaning – which required a significant amount of effort. Now they can benefit from all that hard work by using language to share, inform, request information, to tell jokes and stories and use figurative language and deceive. Using language appropriately in context relies on subtle social and linguistic skills, which take time to develop. Understanding the relevance of other’s utterances, making relevant contributions to the conversation, and structuring information properly so that you are understood, takes years to learn.

In the final session you’ll look at some of the recurrent themes that have been explored along the way, stand back and look at the big picture, and take the end of course assessment.

You can now go to Session 8 [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] .