Children's production of commissive speech acts.

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis study determined at what age and in what form children (aged 4;5 to 11;11) produce speech acts which commit them to some future action, by having them speak a doll's part in dialogues with the experimenter, who spoke for another doll. All children produced directive speech acts, indicating that the task was not too difficult for them, but only the commissive speech acts were analysed in detail. A majority of children at all ages produced at least one commissive speech act, but only the older children used the explicit performative verb promise to reassure the hearer of their commitment.