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Article In:
Pragmatics & Cognition
Vol. 30:2 (2023) ► pp.377–411

Pragmatic development in Peruvian children

Modality and lexical development between 8 and 15 months of age

| Pontifical Catholic University of Peru
| Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CIIPME-CONICET)
| Pontifical Catholic University of Peru

This study examines how 8- to 15-month-old Peruvian children [1] 1 (N = 18) express pragmatic functions in terms of the modality and referential-specificity level of each communicative behaviour. Results show that pragmatic functions were expressed mainly via the vocal modality, primarily with vocalisations; nevertheless, specific functional patterns were found: declaratives involved more use of words, and imperatives more use of gestures. While older children produced more declaratives and less personal expressions, and more words, there was no significant change of preferred modality with age. Finally, vocabulary size and pragmatic production seem to be associated: children with larger receptive vocabularies produced more declaratives and less personal expressions, while those with larger expressive vocabularies produced fewer personal expressions and more words. This pragmatic approach allows for a more nuanced view of communicative development, with each function exhibiting a specific trajectory.

Keywords: early communication, vocabulary size, pragmatic functions, multimodality, referential-specificity level, Peruvian Spanish
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Pragmatic functions: Emergence and diversity of coding schemes
    • 1.2Multimodality and gestures in early communication
    • 1.3The development of referential-specificity
  • 2.This study: Aims and hypotheses
  • 3.Method
    • 3.1Participants
    • 3.2Materials and instruments
    • 3.3Procedure
    • 3.4Design and variables
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1How are pragmatic functions expressed in the early communication of Peruvian children?
      • 4.1.1General characterization of early communication: Pragmatic function, modality and referential-specificity level
      • 4.1.2Relations between pragmatic function, modality and referential-specificity level
    • 4.2Are there individual communicative styles?
    • 4.3How do pragmatic functions develop in this period? The use of pragmatic functions, referential-specificity level and modality
    • 4.4Are receptive and expressive vocabularies related to early communicative production?
  • 5.Discussion and conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Conflict of interest
  • Human and animal welfare
  • Notes
  • References
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
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