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Part of
Language in Interaction: Studies in honor of Eve V. Clark
Edited by Inbal Arnon, Marisa Casillas, Chigusa Kurumada and Bruno Estigarribia
[Trends in Language Acquisition Research 12] 2014
► pp. 191–206

“We call it as puppy”

Pragmatic factors in bilingual language choice

| University of Maryland
| University of Michigan

In this chapter we examine a pragmatic task that bilingual speakers face every day: determining which language to use in which conversational context (also known as “pragmatic differentiation”). We propose that pragmatic differentiation is a gradually emerging skill that requires multiple skills, including theory of mind reasoning. Two studies are described, examining pragmatic differentiation in bilingual Marathi-English language learners under varying communicative goals and contexts. These variations reveal that children’s pragmatic differentiation is dynamic and developing over the preschool years, rather than an all-or-nothing ability. Performance on these tasks seems to be influenced by concurrently developing social insights, such as theory of mind, but may also be affected by group interaction and parent talk about language differentiation.

Published online: 17 July 2014
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tilar.12.16tar
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