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Cited by 28Linguistics and Language AnalysisLanguage, Discourse, Communication StrategiesLanguage Development and Disorders

A Study of Directive Speech Acts Used by Iranian Nursery School Children: The Impact of Context on Children’s Linguistic Choices

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Shahpouri Arani, Shohreh·2012·International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature
DOI 10.7575/ijalel.v.1n.5p.163
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Abstract

This paper aims at finding out the forms and functions of directive speech acts uttered by Persian-speaking children. The writer’s goal is to discover the distinct strategies applied by speakers of nursery school age children regarding three parameters: the choice of form, the negotiation of communicative goals within conversation, and the protection of face. The data collected for this purpose are based on actual school conversational situations that were audio recorded in four nursery schools during classroom work and playtime activities. Children, who are the subjects of this study, are of both sexes and various social backgrounds. The results revealed that (1) the investigation of children’s directive speech acts confirm the fact that they are aware of social parameters of talk (Andersen- Slosberg,1990; Ervin, Tripp et al., 1990); (2) they use linguistic forms that are different from what is used by adults as politeness marker, such as, polite 2nd plural subject-agreement on the verb, “please” and “thank you” words; (3) They use declaratives with illocutionary force in order to mark distance (Georgalidou, 2001). Keywords : Iranian children’s speech; Directive speech act; Politeness, Conversational analysis; Persian

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  • The use of directive speech acts contributes to students' productive skills (speaking and writing) and helps build communicative competence.

    “The scores prove that the use of directive speech act contributes in fostering students' productive skills, which also helps in building students' communicative competence.”

    From A SPEECH ACT ANALYSIS OF TEACHER TALK IN AN EFL CLASSROOM (2017) · cites this paper as Arani (2012)

    The available Abstract (no page number) describes nursery-school children’s use of directive speech acts and their awareness of social parameters of talk. Searches for productive skills, speaking and writing, communicative competence, and skill scores found no passage addressing whether directive speech acts foster those outcomes; the available copy points to a PDF but does not include its contents. (LLM, conf=0.76)

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  • Good communicative competence is the impact or implication of using directive speech acts in the classroom.

    “Apparently, good communicative competence is the impact or the implication of using directive speech acts in the classroom as pointed out by Arani (2012).”

    From A SPEECH ACT ANALYSIS OF TEACHER TALK IN AN EFL CLASSROOM (2017) · cites this paper as Arani (2012)

    The Abstract (no page supplied) describes nursery-school children’s directive speech acts and their awareness of social parameters of talk. Searches for communicative competence and for an impact of classroom directive speech acts found no passage in our copy saying that using directives produces good communicative competence. (LLM, conf=0.70)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

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Research works printed but not linked: 34

  1. Andersen-Slosberg, E. (1990). Speaking with Style. The Sociolinguistic Skills of Children. Routledge, London.
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  4. Bayraktarog˘lu, Arin, Sifianou, Maria (Eds.), (2001). Linguistic Politeness Across Boundaries: The Case of Greece and Turkey. John Benjamins, Amsterdam/Philadelphia.
  5. Blum-Kulka, Sh. (1992). The metapragmatics of politeness in Israeli society. In: Watts, R.J., Ide, S., Ehlich, K. (Eds.), Politeness in Language: Studies in its History, Theory and Practice. Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin, pp. 255–280.
  6. Brown, P., &Levinson, C. S. (1987). Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge University
  7. Bruner, J., Carolyn, R., & Nancy, R. (1982). The beginnings of request. In: Nelson, K.E. (Ed.), Children’s Language 3. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, London, pp. 91–138.
  8. Camaioni, L. (1979). Child–adult and child–child conversations: an interactional approach. In: Ochs, E., Schieffelin, B. (Eds.), Developmental Pragmatics. Academic Press, New York/London, pp. 325–338.
  9. Dore, J. (1979). Conversational acts and the acquisition of language. In: Ochs, E., Schieffelin, B. (Eds.), Developmental Pragmatics. Academic Press, New York/London, pp. 339–362.
  10. Ervin-Tripp, S. (1977). Wait for me, roller skate! In: Ervin-Tripp, S., Mitchell-Kernan, C. (Eds.), Child Discourse. Academic Press, New York/London, pp. 165–188.
  11. Ervin-Tripp, S. (1982). ‘‘Ask and it shall be given unto you’’: Children’s requests. In: Byrnes, H. (Ed.), Georgetown Roundtable on Language and Linguistics, vol. 35. Georgetown University, Washington, DC, pp. 235–245.
  12. Ervin-Tripp, S., Guo, J., & Lambert, M. (1990). Politeness and persuasion in children’s control acts. Journal of Pragmatics 14, 307–331.
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Authors
Shahpouri Arani, S.
Venue
International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature
Publisher
Australian International Academic Centre
Published
2012-09-03
Volume
1
Issue
5
Pages
163-175
ISSN
  • 2200-3452 (ISSN-L)
  • 2200-3592
DOI
10.7575/ijalel.v.1n.5p.163
OpenAlex
W2033545985
Cited by
28
References
0
Citations by year
2026: 1 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 8 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 1 · 2016: 1
FWCI
0.00
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
cc-by
Locations
International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature (publishedVersion, cc-by)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Language and Linguistics › Linguistics and Language Analysis
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Language and Linguistics › Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Language Development and Disorders
Keywords
directive speech acts, children's speech, Persian language, preschool children, politeness, face protection, illocutionary force, declarative sentences, classroom conversation

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