Date of Award

1-1-2001

Thesis Type

Masters

Document Type

Thesis

Divisions

Faculty of Languages and Linguistics

Department

-

Institution

Universiti Malaya

Abstract

Conversational lmplicature (CI) is a form of pragmatic indirectness in language use that is widely considered to be an adult discourse phenomenon. However, detection of its use in children's discourse has led the researcher to embark on a study to document evidence of this phenomenon by investigating IO subjects aged 3 to 7 years. The participant observation method was adopted for this study and the data collected was presented as noted verbatim. The 'as is' nature of the data presented in Chapter Four served to document the children's ability to both extricate and generate applied meaning. Furthermore, by applying adult discourse perspectives to the analysis of the data, the researcher was able to identify various aspects of pragmatic competence within the children's possession which have facilitated the management of CI in their conversations. The findings reveal that young children possess not just an understanding of what language can do and what human communication entails, but also knowledge of pragmatic competence and the ability to apply it to their daily discourse. The findings also uphold the view that child discourse can be a source of authentic data for the study of human communication where adult discourse theories may be applied.

Initial

snms

Additional Information

Dissertation (M.A) -- Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, Universiti Malaya, 2001.

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