Research Article
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Turkish Preschool Children’s Pragmatic Competence on Apologies: The Influence of Sociolinguistic Factors and Contextual Variables

Year 2021, , 17 - 42, 31.12.2021

Özge Gül Zerey , Hatice Sofu

https://doi.org/10.18492/dad.754467

Abstract

This study explores Turkish preschool children’s pragmatic competence with regard to their apology realization patterns. Children’s meta-pragmatic knowledge of apologies was tested and two different age groups (4;0-4;11 and 5;0-6;0) (N=100) were compared to trace possible developmental trends with increasing age in terms of complexity, variety and type of strategies they utilized. Additionally, all the children were grouped according to gender in order to detect the potential effect of this factor on children’s apologizing behaviors. Finally, the range of children’s socio-pragmatic skills was evidenced by tracing their sensitivity in their strategy usage to the severity of the offense as a contextual variable which has a potential effect on speakers’ manner of apologizing. Eight offence scenarios were designed and implemented in the form of Oral Discourse Completion Task (ODCT). The responses were transcribed and phrases for apologizing were classified into categories. The results indicated similarities and differences when compared to adult-usage and children’s tendencies in other languages.

Keywords

pragmatic competence the speech act of apology children's socio-pragmatic skills

Supporting Institution

TÜBİTAK

Thanks

This study has beensupportedbyTUBİTAK’s (The Scientific and Technological ReseacrhCouncil of Turkey) scholarship program for graduate students.

References

  • Babanoğlu, P. M. (2014). A corpus-based study on the use of pragmatic markers as speech-like features in Turkish EFL learners’ argumentative essays. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 136, 186–193.
  • Can, C., & Yakut, İ. (2018). A corpus-driven approach to I think as a pragmatic marker in native and non-native discourse. International Journal of Language Academy, 6(5), 210-229.
  • Bardovi-Harlig, K. & Hartford, B. S. (2005). Interlanguage pragmatics: Exploring institutional talk. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
  • Blum-Kulka, S. (1997). Dinner talk: Cultural patterns of sociability and socialization in family discourse. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
  • Blum-Kulka, S., House, J., & Kasper, G. (1989). Cross-cultural pragmatics: Requests and apologies. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Pub.
  • Blum-Kulka, S., & Olshtain, E. (1984). Requests and apologies: A cross-cultural study of speech act realization patterns (CCSARP). Applied Linguistics, 5(3), 196-213.
  • Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. (1987). Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Cameron-Faulkner, T. (2014). Pragmatic development: trends in language acquisition research. In D. Matthews (Ed.), Pragmatic development in first language acquisition (pp.37-52). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
  • Chang, Y. (2016). Apologizing in Mandarin Chinese: A study on developmental patterns. Concentric: Studies in Linguistics, 42(1), 73-101.
  • Chang, Y. (2018). The effect of interlocutor’s social status on the use of apology strategies: Across-sectional study. Concentric: Studies in Linguistics, 44(1), 89-122.
  • Cohen, A. D. (1996). Developing the ability to perform speech acts. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 18(2), 253-267.
  • Cohen, R. (2004). Apology and reconciliation in international relations. In B. Yaacov (Ed.), From conflict resolution to reconciliation (pp. 177-195). Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Cordella-Masini, M. (1989). Apologizing: a cross-cultural study in Chilean Spanish and Australian English. Master’s thesis, Australian National University. Retrieved February 14, 2017 from http://erl.canberra.edu.au./public/adt-AUC20060907.102205
  • Cook-Gumperz, J., & Szymanski, M. (2001). Classroom “families”: Cooperating or competing-girls’ and boys’ interactional styles in a bilingual classroom. Research on Language and Social Interaction,34(1), 107-130.
  • Çetinavcı, U. R. (2012). Apologizing in Turkish language: An intracultural and intercultural exploratory study. Contemporary Online Language Education Journal, 1, 72-104.
  • Darby, B. W., &Schlenker, B.R. (1982). Children’s reactions to apologies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 43(4), 742-753.
  • Demeter, G. (2006). A Pragmatic study of apology strategies in Romanian. Master thesis, North University, Romania. Retrieved July 28, 2016 from http://digital.library.okstate.edu/etd/umi-okstate-1727.pdf
  • Dunning, T. (1993). Accurate methods for the statistics of surprise and coincidence. Computational Linguistics 19(1), 61-74.
  • Ely, R., & Gleason, J. B. (2006). I’m sorry I said that: apologies in young children’s discourse. Journal of Child Language, 33(3), 599-620.
  • Fraser, B. (1981). On apologizing. In Florian Coulmas (Ed.), Volume 2: Conversational routine: Explorations in standardized communication situations and prepatterned speech (pp. 259-273). The Netherlands: Mouton Publishers.
  • Gleason, J. B., & Perlmann, L. (1985). Acquiring social variation in speech. In H. Giles & R. StClair (Eds.), Recent advances in language, communication, and social psychology (pp. 86-111). London: Lawrence Erlbaum.
  • Greif, E. B., & Gleason, J. B. (1980). Hi, thanks, and goodbye: More routine information. Language in Society, 9, 159-166.
  • Hatipoğlu, Ç. (2003). Culture, gender, and politeness: Apologies in Turkish and British English. Unpublished doctoral thesis, the University of the West of England, Bristol.
  • Holmes, J. (1990). Apologies in New Zealand English. Language in Society, 19(2), 155-199.
  • Kampf, Z., & Blum-Kulka, S. (2007). Do children apologize to each other? Apology events in young Israeli peer discourse. Journal of Politeness Research. Language, Behaviour, Culture, 3(1), 11-37.
  • Kasper, G. (2000). Data Collection in Pragmatics Research. In H. Spencer-Oatey (Ed.), Culturally speaking: Managing rapport through talk across cultures (pp. 316-341). New York: Continuum.
  • Küntay, A.C., Nakamura, K., & Ateş, B. Ş. (2014). Cross-linguistic and cross-cultural approaches to pragmatic development. In D. Matthews (Ed.), Pragmatic development in first language acquisition (pp. 317-342). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
  • Ladegaard, H. J. (2004). Politeness in young children’s speech: context, peer group influence, and pragmatic competence. Journal of Pragmatics, 36, 2003-2022.
  • Marquez-Reiter, R. (1999). 'Polite and 'impolite requests and apologies in British English and Uruguayan Spanish: A comparative study. Doctoral thesis, Boston Spa, Wetherby, West Yorkshire. Retrieved August 13, 2017 from http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/14780/1/301017_vol1.pdf
  • Marquez Reiter, R. (2000). Linguistic politeness in Britain and Uruguay: A contrastive study of requests and apologise. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
  • McEnery, T.,Xiao, R., &Tono, Y. (2006). Corpus-based language studies: An advance resource book. New York: Routledge.
  • Meier, A.J. (2004). Conflict and the power of apologies. PhiN, 30, 1-17.
  • Nazlı, E.H. (2013). Türkçe özür ifadeleri üzerine toplumdilbilimsel bir inceleme. Unpublished master’s thesis, Dicle University, Diyarbakır.
  • Ninio, A., & Snow, C. E. (1996). Pragmatic development: Essays in developmental science. CO, US: Westview Press.
  • Olshtain, E. (1989). Apologies across languages. In S. Blum-Kulka, J. House & G. Kasper (Eds.), Cross-cultural pragmatics: Requests and apologies (pp.155- 173). New Jersey: Ablex.
  • Olshtain, E. & Cohen, A. D. (1983). Apology: A speech act set. In N. Wolfson & E. Judd (Eds.), Sociolinguistics and language acquisition (pp.18-35). Rowley, Mass: Newbury House.
  • Owen, M. (1983). Apologies and remedial interchanges: A study of language use in social interaction. Berlin & New York: Mouton Publishers.
  • Özyıldırım, I. (2010). The level of directness in Turkish apology forms in relation to the level of education. Journal of Faculty of Letters, 27(1), 179-201.
  • Rose, K. R. (2000). An exploratory cross-sectional study of interlanguage pragmatic development. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 22, 27-67.
  • Rose, K. R. (2009). Interlanguage pragmatic development in Hong Kong, phase 2. Journal of Pragmatics, 41, 2345–2364.
  • Sackin, S. & Thelen, E. (1984). An ecological study of peaceful associative outcomes to conflict in preschool children. Child Development, 55(3), 1098-1102.
  • Sadeghi, M.R. (2013). A cross-linguistic investigation of language apology speech act: a case study of Persian and Kurdish children. Journal of Languages and Culture, 4(3), 30-38.
  • Schieffelin, B.B., &Ochs, E. (1986). Language socialization. Annual Reviews, 15, 163-191.
  • Schleien, S., Ross, H., & Ross, M. (2010). Young children’s apologies to their siblings. Social Development, 19(1), 170-186.
  • Schlenker, B. R. & Darby, B. W. (1981). The use of apologies in social predicaments. Social Psychology Quarterly, 44(3), 271-278.
  • Sheldon, A. (1990). Pickle fights: Gendered talk in preschool disputes. Discourse Processes: special issue on language and gender, 13(1), 5-31.
  • Smith, C.E. (2009). He wished he didn’t do it: Children’s thinking about transgression and apology. Unpublished doctoral thesis, Harvard University, Massachusetts.
  • Smith, C. E., Chen, D., &Harris, P. L., (2010). When the happy victimizer says sorry: children’s understanding of apology and emotion. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 28, 727-746.
  • Snow, C. E., Pan, B. A., Bailey, A., & Herman, J. (1996). Learning how to say what one means: a longitudinal study of children’s speech act use. Social Development, 5(1), 56-70.
  • Walliman, N. (2011). Research methods: The basics. New York: Routledge.
  • Vollmer, H. J., & Olshtain, E. (1989). The language of apology in German. In S. Blum-Kulka, J.House & G. Kasper (Eds.), Cross-cultural pragmatics: Requests and apologies (pp. 197-218). New Jersey: Ablex.

Anaokuluna Giden Türk Çocukların Özür Dileme Söz Eylemine ilişkin Edimsel Yeterlilikleri: Sosyo-linguistik Faktörlerin ve Bağlamsal Değişkenlerin Etkisi

Year 2021, , 17 - 42, 31.12.2021

Özge Gül Zerey , Hatice Sofu

https://doi.org/10.18492/dad.754467

Abstract

Bu çalışma anaokuluna giden Türk çocukların özür dileme söz eylemini gerçekleştirme kalıplarına ilişkin edimsel yeterliliklerini araştırmaktadır. Öncelikle çocukların özür dileme söz eylemine ilişkin meta-pragmatik bilgileri test edilmiş ve sonrasında iki yaş grubu (4;0-4;11 ve 5;0-6;0) (T=100) yaşla beraber ortaya çıkan gelişimsel özellikler açısından kıyaslanmıştır. Ayrıca, yaş gözetilmeksizin, tüm çocuklar cinsiyetlerine göre yeniden gruplandırılmış ve cinsiyet faktörünün çocukların özür dileme kalıpları üzerindeki etkisine bakılmıştır. Son olarak, çocukların sosyopragmatik becerileri, konuşucuların özür dileme davranışları üzerinde etkili olduğu bildirilen bağlamsal değişkenlerden biri olan “suçun şiddeti”ne duyarlılıkları ile ölçülmüştür. Suç içeren sekiz senaryo yukarıda bahsedilen bağlamsal parameter etrafında şekillendirilerek hazırlanmış ve Sözlü Söylem Tamamlama Testi formatında uygulanmıştır. Daha sonra bu yanıtların dökümü çıkarılmış, çalışmada kullanılmak üzere seçilen taksonomiye dayanarak sınıflandırılmış ve istatiksel olarak analiz edilmiştir. Sonuçlar, yetişkin kullanımı ve diğer dillerdeki çocuk kullanımları ile kıyaslandığında benzerlik ve farklılıklar göstermektedir.

Keywords

edimsel yeterlilik özür dileme söz eylemi sosyo-pragmatik beceriler

References

  • Babanoğlu, P. M. (2014). A corpus-based study on the use of pragmatic markers as speech-like features in Turkish EFL learners’ argumentative essays. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 136, 186–193.
  • Can, C., & Yakut, İ. (2018). A corpus-driven approach to I think as a pragmatic marker in native and non-native discourse. International Journal of Language Academy, 6(5), 210-229.
  • Bardovi-Harlig, K. & Hartford, B. S. (2005). Interlanguage pragmatics: Exploring institutional talk. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
  • Blum-Kulka, S. (1997). Dinner talk: Cultural patterns of sociability and socialization in family discourse. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
  • Blum-Kulka, S., House, J., & Kasper, G. (1989). Cross-cultural pragmatics: Requests and apologies. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Pub.
  • Blum-Kulka, S., & Olshtain, E. (1984). Requests and apologies: A cross-cultural study of speech act realization patterns (CCSARP). Applied Linguistics, 5(3), 196-213.
  • Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. (1987). Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Cameron-Faulkner, T. (2014). Pragmatic development: trends in language acquisition research. In D. Matthews (Ed.), Pragmatic development in first language acquisition (pp.37-52). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
  • Chang, Y. (2016). Apologizing in Mandarin Chinese: A study on developmental patterns. Concentric: Studies in Linguistics, 42(1), 73-101.
  • Chang, Y. (2018). The effect of interlocutor’s social status on the use of apology strategies: Across-sectional study. Concentric: Studies in Linguistics, 44(1), 89-122.
  • Cohen, A. D. (1996). Developing the ability to perform speech acts. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 18(2), 253-267.
  • Cohen, R. (2004). Apology and reconciliation in international relations. In B. Yaacov (Ed.), From conflict resolution to reconciliation (pp. 177-195). Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Cordella-Masini, M. (1989). Apologizing: a cross-cultural study in Chilean Spanish and Australian English. Master’s thesis, Australian National University. Retrieved February 14, 2017 from http://erl.canberra.edu.au./public/adt-AUC20060907.102205
  • Cook-Gumperz, J., & Szymanski, M. (2001). Classroom “families”: Cooperating or competing-girls’ and boys’ interactional styles in a bilingual classroom. Research on Language and Social Interaction,34(1), 107-130.
  • Çetinavcı, U. R. (2012). Apologizing in Turkish language: An intracultural and intercultural exploratory study. Contemporary Online Language Education Journal, 1, 72-104.
  • Darby, B. W., &Schlenker, B.R. (1982). Children’s reactions to apologies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 43(4), 742-753.
  • Demeter, G. (2006). A Pragmatic study of apology strategies in Romanian. Master thesis, North University, Romania. Retrieved July 28, 2016 from http://digital.library.okstate.edu/etd/umi-okstate-1727.pdf
  • Dunning, T. (1993). Accurate methods for the statistics of surprise and coincidence. Computational Linguistics 19(1), 61-74.
  • Ely, R., & Gleason, J. B. (2006). I’m sorry I said that: apologies in young children’s discourse. Journal of Child Language, 33(3), 599-620.
  • Fraser, B. (1981). On apologizing. In Florian Coulmas (Ed.), Volume 2: Conversational routine: Explorations in standardized communication situations and prepatterned speech (pp. 259-273). The Netherlands: Mouton Publishers.
  • Gleason, J. B., & Perlmann, L. (1985). Acquiring social variation in speech. In H. Giles & R. StClair (Eds.), Recent advances in language, communication, and social psychology (pp. 86-111). London: Lawrence Erlbaum.
  • Greif, E. B., & Gleason, J. B. (1980). Hi, thanks, and goodbye: More routine information. Language in Society, 9, 159-166.
  • Hatipoğlu, Ç. (2003). Culture, gender, and politeness: Apologies in Turkish and British English. Unpublished doctoral thesis, the University of the West of England, Bristol.
  • Holmes, J. (1990). Apologies in New Zealand English. Language in Society, 19(2), 155-199.
  • Kampf, Z., & Blum-Kulka, S. (2007). Do children apologize to each other? Apology events in young Israeli peer discourse. Journal of Politeness Research. Language, Behaviour, Culture, 3(1), 11-37.
  • Kasper, G. (2000). Data Collection in Pragmatics Research. In H. Spencer-Oatey (Ed.), Culturally speaking: Managing rapport through talk across cultures (pp. 316-341). New York: Continuum.
  • Küntay, A.C., Nakamura, K., & Ateş, B. Ş. (2014). Cross-linguistic and cross-cultural approaches to pragmatic development. In D. Matthews (Ed.), Pragmatic development in first language acquisition (pp. 317-342). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
  • Ladegaard, H. J. (2004). Politeness in young children’s speech: context, peer group influence, and pragmatic competence. Journal of Pragmatics, 36, 2003-2022.
  • Marquez-Reiter, R. (1999). 'Polite and 'impolite requests and apologies in British English and Uruguayan Spanish: A comparative study. Doctoral thesis, Boston Spa, Wetherby, West Yorkshire. Retrieved August 13, 2017 from http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/14780/1/301017_vol1.pdf
  • Marquez Reiter, R. (2000). Linguistic politeness in Britain and Uruguay: A contrastive study of requests and apologise. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
  • McEnery, T.,Xiao, R., &Tono, Y. (2006). Corpus-based language studies: An advance resource book. New York: Routledge.
  • Meier, A.J. (2004). Conflict and the power of apologies. PhiN, 30, 1-17.
  • Nazlı, E.H. (2013). Türkçe özür ifadeleri üzerine toplumdilbilimsel bir inceleme. Unpublished master’s thesis, Dicle University, Diyarbakır.
  • Ninio, A., & Snow, C. E. (1996). Pragmatic development: Essays in developmental science. CO, US: Westview Press.
  • Olshtain, E. (1989). Apologies across languages. In S. Blum-Kulka, J. House & G. Kasper (Eds.), Cross-cultural pragmatics: Requests and apologies (pp.155- 173). New Jersey: Ablex.
  • Olshtain, E. & Cohen, A. D. (1983). Apology: A speech act set. In N. Wolfson & E. Judd (Eds.), Sociolinguistics and language acquisition (pp.18-35). Rowley, Mass: Newbury House.
  • Owen, M. (1983). Apologies and remedial interchanges: A study of language use in social interaction. Berlin & New York: Mouton Publishers.
  • Özyıldırım, I. (2010). The level of directness in Turkish apology forms in relation to the level of education. Journal of Faculty of Letters, 27(1), 179-201.
  • Rose, K. R. (2000). An exploratory cross-sectional study of interlanguage pragmatic development. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 22, 27-67.
  • Rose, K. R. (2009). Interlanguage pragmatic development in Hong Kong, phase 2. Journal of Pragmatics, 41, 2345–2364.
  • Sackin, S. & Thelen, E. (1984). An ecological study of peaceful associative outcomes to conflict in preschool children. Child Development, 55(3), 1098-1102.
  • Sadeghi, M.R. (2013). A cross-linguistic investigation of language apology speech act: a case study of Persian and Kurdish children. Journal of Languages and Culture, 4(3), 30-38.
  • Schieffelin, B.B., &Ochs, E. (1986). Language socialization. Annual Reviews, 15, 163-191.
  • Schleien, S., Ross, H., & Ross, M. (2010). Young children’s apologies to their siblings. Social Development, 19(1), 170-186.
  • Schlenker, B. R. & Darby, B. W. (1981). The use of apologies in social predicaments. Social Psychology Quarterly, 44(3), 271-278.
  • Sheldon, A. (1990). Pickle fights: Gendered talk in preschool disputes. Discourse Processes: special issue on language and gender, 13(1), 5-31.
  • Smith, C.E. (2009). He wished he didn’t do it: Children’s thinking about transgression and apology. Unpublished doctoral thesis, Harvard University, Massachusetts.
  • Smith, C. E., Chen, D., &Harris, P. L., (2010). When the happy victimizer says sorry: children’s understanding of apology and emotion. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 28, 727-746.
  • Snow, C. E., Pan, B. A., Bailey, A., & Herman, J. (1996). Learning how to say what one means: a longitudinal study of children’s speech act use. Social Development, 5(1), 56-70.
  • Walliman, N. (2011). Research methods: The basics. New York: Routledge.
  • Vollmer, H. J., & Olshtain, E. (1989). The language of apology in German. In S. Blum-Kulka, J.House & G. Kasper (Eds.), Cross-cultural pragmatics: Requests and apologies (pp. 197-218). New Jersey: Ablex.
There are 51 citations in total.

Details

Primary Language English
Journal Section Research Articles
Authors

Özge Gül Zerey

Hatice Sofu

Publication Date December 31, 2021
Published in Issue Year 2021

Cite

APA Zerey, Ö. G., & Sofu, H. (2021). Turkish Preschool Children’s Pragmatic Competence on Apologies: The Influence of Sociolinguistic Factors and Contextual Variables. Dilbilim Araştırmaları Dergisi, 32(3), 17-42. https://doi.org/10.18492/dad.754467

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Dergi DOI:10.18492/dad