Developmental and Clinical Pragmatics

Klaus P. Schneider, Elly Ifantidou

• Publisher: De Gruyter Mouton
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9783110431131
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This handbook provides a comprehensive and up-to-date survey of a wide range of developmental and clinical issues in pragmatics. Principally, the contributions to this volume deal with pragmatic competence in a native language, in a second or foreign language, and in a selection of language disorders. The topics which are covered explore questions of production and comprehension on the utterance and discourse level. Topics addressed concern the acquisition and learning, teaching and testing, assessment and treatment of various aspects of pragmatic ability, knowledge and use. These include, for example, the acquisition and development of speech acts, implicatures, irony, story-telling and interactional competence. Phenomena such as pragmatic awareness and pragmatic transfer are also addressed. The disorders considered include clinical conditions pertaining to children and to adults. Specifically, these are, among others, autism spectrum disorders, Down syndrome, and Alzheimer's disease.

1. Pragmatic competence: Development and impairment

Elly Ifantidou

Klaus P. Schneider

In: K. P. Schneider and E. Ifantidou (eds.). (2020). Developmental and Clinical Pragmatics, 1–29. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter Mouton.

Abstract

The contributions to the present volume are written from three different perspectives, respectively examining pragmatic development in a first language, in a second language, and under clinical conditions. In general, they are thus all focused on pragmatic competence, while in particular they deal with a variety of aspects of how pragmatic competence is acquired, learnt and taught, and how it may be impaired, assessed or tested. This introductory chapter begins with a discussion of competing conceptualizations of pragmatic competence, before the contributions to this volume are briefly summarized. It emerges that in each of the research communities represented in this handbook there seems to be a dominant paradigm, involving a relatively specific notion of pragmatic competence and a distinctive methodological approach, based on a particular theoretical tradition. Research on pragmatic acquisition in a native language seems predominantly interested in implicatures and comprehension from an essentially Gricean point of view, whereas research on pragmatic development in a second language seems to concentrate overwhelmingly on speech acts and production in an applied speech act-analytic tradition. Research in clinical pragmatics, on the other hand, appears to be more varied in the approaches adopted, which include Gricean as well as speech act-theoretic approaches and also different traditions of discourse analysis as well as conversation analysis.

1. On pragmatic competence

This handbook on developmental and clinical pragmatics is volume 13 in the handbook series Handbooks of Pragmatics. All contributions to this volume center around the notion of pragmatic competence, which is examined from different angles. There are three major perspectives: First, the development of pragmatic competence in a native language, and second, the development of pragmatic competence in a non-native language. In these two perspectives, the focus is on typical development in healthy individuals. The third perspective, on the other hand, is focused on atypical conditions and clinical contexts, specifically the impairment of pragmatic competence in individuals with some kind of language and communication disorder or a disease such as dementia.

To date, there is no definition of pragmatic competence which is generally accepted. Pragmatic competence can be and has been defined in broad and narrow terms. How it is defined crucially depends, of course, on how the field of pragmatics is conceptualized. This field has been conceptualized as, e. g., “the study of language use, meaning in context, communicative functions of utterances, speaker intentions, hearer interpretations, participant practices, talk-in-interaction, relational work, displays of identity, and so on” (Schneider 2017: 316), and this list is not nearly exhaustive (cf. Bublitz and Norrick 2011).

In this handbook series Handbooks of Pragmatics, a wide understanding of pragmatics is adopted, conceptualizing this field of inquiry as “the scientific study of all aspects of linguistic behaviour” (cf. the “Preface to the handbook series” at the beginning of this book). These aspects of linguistic behaviour include “patterns of linguistic actions, language functions, types of inferences, principles of communication, frames of knowledge, attitude and belief, as well as organisational principles of text and discourse.” This ‘maximalist’ conceptualization roughly corresponds to, or even goes beyond, what Huang (2010) calls the Continental European tradition, which contrasts with what he calls the Anglo-American tradition, in which the focus of analysis is prototypically on individual utterances and, in a Gricean fashion, a hearer perspective rather than, as in speech act theory, a speaker perspective. Huang’s geographical labels may, to a certain extent, be correlated with the terminological distinction between micro- and macro-pragmatics, with the former pertaining to the utterance level and the latter to the discourse level (cf. Barron and Schneider 2014, also Cap 2011) which includes as a unit of analysis not only discourse as an entire communicative event, but also, in a wider sense, the discourse domain, for instance the domain of legal discourse or the domain of academic discourse (cf. Jucker 2018: 10-11).

It emerges from the contributions to this volume that each of the three research communities respectively working on L1 pragmatic development, L2 pragmatic development and pragmatic impairment has its own distinct research tradition, including a broad or a narrow notion of pragmatics and thus pragmatic competence, and adopting a specific framework, e. g. the Gricean paradigm, speech act theory or discourse analysis. Needless to say, this does not mean that all researchers working on the same perspective subscribe, without exception, to a particular notion of pragmatic competence and a particular approach to investigating it, yet there are distinct preferences regarding the theoretical underpinnings and methodological choices (cf. below).

An early, and still popular, definition of pragmatic competence, referred to in several chapters of this volume, especially in Part II, was provided by Thomas (1983), who conceptualizes pragmatic competence as the counterpart of grammatical competence and, thus, as one of two complementary components of language competence. She writes (1983: 92):

A speaker’s ‘linguistic competence’ would be made up of grammatical competence (‘abstract’ or decontextualized knowledge of intonation, phonology, syntax, semantics, etc.) and pragmatic competence (the ability to use language effectively in order to achieve a specific purpose and to understand language in context).

In this understanding, the notion of grammar is not narrowly reduced to morphosyntax, but also encompasses e. g. phonology and semantics. Here, grammar is, in other words, a synonym for the language system with its various levels of analysis. This wide understanding of grammatical competence approximately corresponds to Chomsky’s idea of competence, although at its inception Chomsky’s notion was more or less reduced to syntactic competence, rather than encompassing further levels of the language system (Chomsky 1965). With reference to Chomsky, it has also been argued that pragmatic competence may be equated with his notion of performance (for discussion, see Ifantidou 2014: 1-5). Yet, pragmatic competence is more similar to de Saussure’s parole (de Saussure 1916) in that it is more conventionalized and norm-governed than what Chomsky has in mind when he talks about performance, mentioning such accidental phenomena as lapses in memory, tiredness and distraction.

Within pragmatic competence, Thomas (1983) distinguishes between pragmalinguistic competence and sociopragmatic competence. According to Leech (1983: 10-11), who adopted Thomas’ distinction, pragmalinguistics and sociopragmatics can be understood as interfaces. In this view, pragmalinguistics is the interface with the language system, which means that pragmalinguistic competence is language-specific. It involves knowledge (not usually explicit, declarative and conscious) of the specific resources in a given language e. g. for realizing a particular speech act, for instance for paying a compliment (i. e. choice of adjectives, syntactic constructions, intensifiers, etc.; cf. e. g. Manes and Wolfson 1981). Sociopragmatics, on the other hand, is conceptualized as the interface of pragmatics with sociology. Hence sociopragmatic competence is not language-, but culture-specific and involves knowledge of the relevant behavioural norms and social conventions e. g. for performing a particular speech act, including what is generally considered polite, rude or appropriate in a given situation, for instance when and whom to pay a compliment in a given language community (influenced by such factors as circumstances, gender, power and distance, etc.; cf. e. g. Holmes 1995) (for an extensive discussion, see Marmaridou 2011).

This popular and much quoted definition of pragmatic competence pertains only to the micro-pragmatic level, i. e. the level of utterances and more frequently the level of speech acts with its focus on language production. A definition by Fraser, on the other hand, adds to pragmatic production the dimension of pragmatic comprehension (2010: 15): “Pragmatic competence is the ability to communicate your intended message with all its nuances in any socio-cultural context and to interpret the message of your interlocutor as it was intended.” Yet Fraser’s definition also seems to concentrate on the micro-pragmatic level alone. A more comprehensive notion is referred to by Johnstone, who writes (2008: 7):

[…] knowing a language means not just knowing its grammar and vocabulary but also knowing how to structure paragraphs and arguments and participate in conversations the way speakers of the language do, and it means understanding which sentence types can accomplish which purposes in social interaction: what might work as an apology, for example, or how to decline an invitation.

In addition to the reference to speech acts, participation in conversation is mentioned, thus including the macro-pragmatic level of spoken dialogical discourse (with “the way speakers of the language do” indicating non-native competence). Further, referring to the structuring of arguments and, more specifically, paragraphs introduces the dimension of written communication to the discussion of pragmatic competence otherwise usually restricted to the analysis of oral communication.

Finally, Gabbatore et al. (2019), writing about an assessment battery for communication, highlight the general centrality of pragmatic competence, referring to interpersonal and interactional aspects and the situatedness of communication. They say (Gabbatore et al. 2019: 28):

Pragmatic ability is crucial in everyday life since it is necessary for interpersonal interactions. It affects the way people communicate and behave in social situations just as such behavior affects the way the communicative partners respond and then react.

They also refer to non-verbal communicative behaviour as a further relevant parameter, underscoring that linguistic as well as extra- and paralinguistic resources play a crucial role in pragmatic production and comprehension (Gabbatore et al. 2019: 28).

pragmatic ability focuses on how people use context in both comprehension and

production and how contextual factors interact with the linguistic meaning of an

utterance […] or other expressive means, i. e. non-verbal/extralinguistic and paralinguistic.

This selection of general definitions serves to illustrate that a comprehensive conceptualization of pragmatic competence (also referred to as pragmatic ability or knowledge) minimally needs to include the following parameters (cf. Schneider 2017: 317):

Micropragmatics and macropragmatics

Production and comprehension

Spoken discourse and written discourse

Verbal communication and non-verbal communication

Based on these distinctions, pragmatic competence may be correlated with some competing concepts (which also have been defined in various ways). For instance, communicative competence (cf., e. g., Hymes 1972) can be thought of as a cover term for verbal communication and non-verbal communication. Discourse competence (cf., e. g., Timpe 2014) can be considered a synonymous expression for macropragmatic competence, pertaining to both spoken and written discourse, whereas interactional competence (cf., e. g., Kasper and Ross 2013) relates specifically to spoken dialogic discourse such as conversation, interviews, debates, negotiations, etc. Lastly, the notion of sociolinguistic competence (cf., e. g., Regan, Howard and Lemée 2009) more or less covers the area of sociopragmatic competence. It is worth noting that the correspondences suggested here do not necessarily reflect the understanding of the respective terms and concepts in the publications referred to. The sources given do however include relevant discussions. Further relevant discussions of these and additional terms and concepts are included in the chapters of this handbook.

The chapters in the present volume are based on different conceptualizations of pragmatic competence. Many authors take a specific angle, concentrating on particular aspects of pragmatic competence. Across contributions in each part of the book, the aspects dealt with are often remarkably similar, and so are the respective theoretical underpinnings and the methodological choices connected to these. Across the three parts, however, a general picture emerges which can be loosely characterized as follows: Most work is concerned with micropragmatic aspects, spoken language has been the focus almost exclusively, and non-verbal communication has been relatively neglected. Likewise, the socio-cognitive synergic approach to second language pragmatics by Kecskes (2010, 2014) and the relevance-theoretic inferential approach to pragmatic competence by Ifantidou (2014, 2019) remain largely outside the scope of the current volume. Work carried out on pragmatic development in a first language is predominantly concerned with the interpretation of utterances in an essentially Gricean tradition, whereas work on pragmatic development in a second language is overwhelmingly focused on speech act production, while there are, needless to say, exceptions in either case. The picture seems less homogeneous in work on pragmatic impairment, where also more comprehensive concepts of pragmatics and pragmatic competence are referred to.

2. The overall organization of this volume

This international handbook on developmental and clinical pragmatics includes 22 chapters, all exclusively written for the present volume by a total of 32 authors, working in 12 different countries. The 21 chapters following this introduction appear in three parts. Part I is focused on pragmatic development in a first language, Part II on pragmatic development in a second language, and Part III deals with pragmatic disorders. The basic idea was to bring together experts from three different research strands, with their specific backgrounds, traditions, approaches and methods, yet all focused, one way or another, on issues concerning pragmatic competence. The contributors are working in such disciplines as linguistics, psychology and education, specifically in applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics and clinical linguistics, and in audiology, brain science, language therapy and health service research, and this list is not even complete (cf. the bio notes of the contributors in the back of this book).

Part I includes seven, Part II eight, and Part III six chapters. Given the combination of three distinct research perspectives, the coverage in each part cannot be exhaustive, but has to be selective. For this reason, each part opens with a chapter providing an overview for the reader’s orientation in the respective field (chapters 2, 9 and 17), while the remaining chapters each deal with a particular topic typically studied in that field.

The chapters in Part I deal with the development of communicative acts (chapter 3) and with the acquisition of epistemic and evidential expressions, of implicatures, of irony, and of prosody (chapters 4, 5, 6, and 7). While research on pragmatic competence in a native language overwhelmingly concentrates on the development in children, the last chapter in this part (chapter 8) deals with the specific pragmatic developments in the middle and especially the later stages of life.

The chapters in Part II examine facets of the development of pragmatic competence in a foreign rather than a second language, i. e. the focus is on non-native languages learned by instruction and in classrooms, and in contexts in which a majority speaks the learners’ native and not their target language. In this part of the volume, the chapters deal with issues of teaching, learning and testing L2 pragmatic competence, and the topics covered include speech acts, the interpretation of indirectness, and the comprehension of implicatures and humor (chapters 10, 11, and 12), these topics echoing some of the topics examined in Part I. Further phenomena dealt with in Part II are pragmatic transfer (typically) from L1 to L2, the development of pragmatic awareness in an L2, and the development of L2 pragmatic competence during a study abroad sojourn (chapters 13, 14, and 15). The last chapter in this part of the handbook is dedicated to the assessment of L2 pragmatic competence (chapter 16).

In Part III on pragmatic impairment, four of the five chapters following the overview chapter are focused on specific disorders. These are autism spectrum disorders (ASD), Down syndrome, aphasia, and dementia (chapters 18, 19, 20, and 21). Further disorders and how they affect pragmatic competence and pragmatic development are briefly discussed in the overview chapter. The final chapter deals with the assessment of impaired pragmatic competence, here specifically with the assessment of pragmatic competence in developmental disorders (chapter 22).

3. The contributions

In the present section, the chapters are briefly summarized. As a rule, the nature and development of the respective phenomena under inspection are addressed, and the frameworks adopted and the methods chosen are specified.

3.1. Part I: Pragmatic development in a first language

In the opening chapter of Part I (chapter 2), Sandrine Zufferey presents an overview of how children acquire in their L1 the abilities necessary to produce language appropriately relative to social situations and to understand the explicit and implicit meanings of their interlocutors’ utterances. The acquisition of these abilities starts with birth, before language emerges, and develops over a longer period of time than phonological or syntactic competence. At what age which pragmatic competence is actually acquired is a controversial issue. Diverging opinions can be attributed to different methodological choices. Traditional developmental studies involved experimental tasks requiring explicit explanations. More recent studies examined implicit pragmatic comprehension, e. g. by tracing eye-movements. Findings from these more recent studies suggest that some pragmatic phenomena develop in fact in an earlier period than traditionally assumed. The timeline for the acquisition process that the author provides is based on these more recent findings. In this process, three stages are distinguished: the pre- and early verbal period (from birth to age 3), the preschool years (from 3 to 6 years), and the primary school years (later childhood). Even in the earliest stage infants are able to use common ground in their referential communication and to distinguish between knowing and ignorant conversational partners. They furthermore master frequent indirect speech acts such as requests and can vary their level of politeness depending on who they talk to. In the second stage of the acquisition process, children are aware of common ground and can quickly process referential expressions. At this stage, they start developing competencies to use discourse markers such as well and now in a context-sensitive way and begin to understand metaphors and scalar implicatures. In the third stage, many pragmatic abilities develop to an adult-like level. This applies, for instance, to the comprehension of scalar implicatures. Children are able to produce, understand and appropriately react to a range of different speech acts including complex acts like promises, and they develop the abilities necessary to understand verbal irony. The three stages in the acquisition process can be explained with reference to the cognitive, social and linguistic resources respectively required, providing an answer to the question why some pragmatic phenomena emerge later than others. For example, a sufficient amount of world knowledge has to be acquired before metaphors can be adequately processed. In early research on the development of pragmatic competence it was generally assumed that pragmatic abilities emerge late in childhood. More recent research provides a more differentiated picture. The discrepancies can be attributed...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• 1. Pragmatic competence: Development and impairment
• I. Pragmatic development in a first language
• II. Pragmatic development in a second language
• III. Pragmatic disorders