Comprehension and Use of Social Rules in Pronoun Selection by Hungarian Children

Abstract

This chapter presents the comprehension and use of social rules in pronoun selection by Hungarian children. It presents the differences between the understanding or knowledge of and the use of certain social rules in pronoun selection by children who grow up in two different social settings within the same culture area. Three age groups of children living in two locations were tested on two tasks. The tasks, a multiple choice test and a role-playing test, were designed to measure the differences between the children's knowledge of the adult personal pronoun system and their ability to play the role of various adults by utilizing that knowledge. The results indicate that although there is a significant difference in the overall performance of the town and the farm children, both groups scored higher on the comprehension test than on the role-taking measures. Knowledge of linguistic forms and social rules alone does not enable the child to play different roles, for which he has to acquire a cognitive operation which enables him to switch perspectives with others.