Turkish Preschool Children’s Pragmatic Competence on Apologies: The Influence of Sociolinguistic Factors and Contextual Variables
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
Supporting Institution
Thanks
References
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Details
Primary Language
English
Subjects
-
Journal Section
Research Article
Publication Date
December 31, 2021
Submission Date
June 18, 2020
Acceptance Date
December 30, 2021
Published in Issue
Year 2021 Volume: 32 Number: 3
