The development of pragmatic competence: Past findings and future directions for research

The aim of this paper is to provide an informed background to the descriptions and discussions of child language that appear in this volume. Some of the background will be familiar to many readers, indeed so ingrained in our present understandings of the field of child language development that we take it all for granted. It has become what linguists call intuitive knowledge. The selected descriptions serve as a reminder of the complex processes involved in learning a language. The paper presents a framework for describing and understanding children's developing pragmatic competence and accompanying sociolinguistic strategies.