Viewpoints on communicative competence – its origins and development in the perspective of communicational situation

The article attempts to classify views on communicative competence. It presents a hypothesis concerning its origins and development. The development of communicative competence is analyzed in the context of differentiation and consolidation of various forms of changeability of communicational situation. The article successively deals with the following issues:
1. Competence. Linguistic competence and communicative competence.
2. Viewpoints on communicative competence.
3. Origins and development of communicative competence.
The conclusion touches upon the influence of effective interpersonal communication on the development of a human being.

Emotional discourse and its role in the development of the knowledge of emotions

The term “emotional discourse” refers to the child’s participation in conversations about emotions. A great body of research (Dunn et al., 1991; Dunn, Brophy, 2005; Harris, 2005; Peterson, Slaughter, 2006) indicate that there is a significant correlation between the child’s participation in emotional discourse (with his/her mother, siblings or friends) and his/her emotional knowledge. The aim of the article is to analyze the role of emotional discourse in the development of the knowledge of emotions.
Theories of discourse (van Dijk, 1985; 1990; Shugar, 1995) and of cognitive development (Karmiloff-Smith, 1992; Stemplewska-Żakowicz, 2001; Tomasello, 2002) indicate that in discourse the child has an opportunity to gain knowledge about invisible phenomena and is confronted with distinct perspectives. The child has also an opportunity to name and organize his/her emotions and to make distinctions between them due to verbal terms provided by his/her partner in discourse. Therefore the child’s participation in emotional discourse facilitaties his/her becom ing aware of his/her emotional states together with their causes and consequences, and – due to confrontation with distinct perspectives – the development of the discursive representation of emotions.

N-phoneme and N-syllable expressions in adult speech directed to infants

Studies devoted to phonostatic research have made clear that there is a correlation between the frequency of words of a certain phoneme and syllable length and their adherence to certain stylistic variations of Polish. The fact of the occurrence of a higher number of shorter or longer words depending on the type of analysed expressions was noticed by linguists at the beginning of the 20th century, although most of these opinions were not yet supported by a proper quantity of data. Such data began to published in the 1970s.
My article presents results concerning the frequency of n-phoneme and n-syllable words in a particular, simplified register of infant-directed speech (IDS). A comparison of the frequency of the occurrence of words of a certain phoneme and syllable length in IDS with the data obtained from other speech samples, among them the Polish of pre-schoolers and contemporary Polish, allows one to state that the length of words may be one of the most important criteria evidencing the “difference” of infant-directed speech.
The analysed language material (cassette recording) came from 102 child-carers (mothers, fathers and grandmothers). It was listened to, phonologically transcribed and entered into a computer memory by one person. All of the analysed text consisted of 74,534 words (308,918 phonemes).

What do parents know about their children’s vocabulary? A questionnaire/checklist study of lexical development in children aged 2–6

The paper presents a study on lexical development of Polish children aged 2–6. Three tools were constructed for this purpose: “The Child Lexicon Development Questionnaire/Checklist”, “The Questionnaire: Communication and Family Routines“ and a personal questionnaire. All were filled in by children’s parents. The first tool comprised nouns, verbs and adjectives drawn in a layered drawing from the Frequency List of Polish Language Corpus (PWN, 2004). The next two consisted of questions related to interactions in the family, social environment and family SES. Data from 148 children were analyzed. Results revealed non-linear lexical growth with age, positive impact of diversified interactions with parents as well as of a number of different games/play situations with peers on children’s vocabulary. Interactions with parents mainly affected noun and adjective vocabulary, while the number of plays with peers affected verb vocabulary.

Deciphering vocal and facial signs of emotion by children aged 4 to 7

Communication can be both verbal and non-verbal. Often a person’s true intentions are expressed non-verbally. The two main factors of non-verbal expression are voice and facial expression.

Research has shown (Edwards, Manstead and MacDonalds, 1984; Głodowski, 1999) that children who decipher non-verbal signals most adeptly are the most popular among their peers, while those who show a lack of ability in this matter may experience social and educational failures.

The purpose of this study was to determine: 1. If and to what extent preschool-aged children (4;0–7;11 years) recognize facial signs of emotion. 2. If and to what extent preschool-aged children recognize vocal signs of emotion. 3. If, in the case of a contradiction between the verbal and non-verbal message, pre-school children emphasize the content or the intonation of speech.

This research involved the participation of 113 children attending pre-schools in the Tri- City. Analysis of the study results allowed us to state that as children mature, one can observe an increase in their ability to decipher emotions from facial expressions, while their ability to recognize emotions expressed by voice modulation decreases. Moreover, it appears that in the case of ambiguous messages, younger children place more emphasis on voice intonation than their older peers, whereas older children prefer the message content as the main indicator of information.

Understanding of ambiguity in 5-year-old children in the context of the development of theory of mind

Research studies on ambiguity are related to different areas – communication, language and processing of perceptual stimuli. Results obtained from most research show that children under the age of six can neither react  dequately to ambiguous linguistic or visual stimuli nor understand ambiguous statements.
A hypothesis about the relation between understanding ambiguity and the development of the knowledge about the mind was proposed after an analysis of existing experimental data. Four different tasks testing the understanding of ambiguity had been used and it was found out that their level of difficulty varied. There was no connection between the performance in solving tasks of different types. The relation between the understanding of ambiguity and the development of the knowledge of mind was indicated. Children performed better in false beliefs test than in tasks testing their understanding of ambiguity. There was a correlation between performance in particular tasks testing the understanding of false beliefs and tasks testing the understanding of ambiguity.

Understanding metaphors with vehicles from the animal domain – a developmental perspective

The aim of the presented empirical study was to explore the development of metaphor understanding in children. The results of the study were to reveal the way the mind organises information belonging to different fields of knowledge. The study followed a quasi-experimental design. The subjects were 77 children from three age groups: 5;6–6;0, 8;0–8;6, 9;6–10;0. The dependent variable was the level of comprehension of metaphors with vehicles from the animal domain, but connoting human attributes. The variable was measured through individual Piagetian interviews. The study proper was preceded by a pilot study on 24 adults. The data collected were analysed with the help of raters. The study confirmed the hypothesis that the ability to activate metaphorical thinking increases with age, however the increase is not linear. Older children assigned more human dispositional traits, thoughts and preferences to the objects of metaphors. Younger ones often focused on the physical features of animals. With age, the tendency to give positive evaluations to the objects of metaphors increases, while the number of digressions decreases. The development of the understanding of conventional metaphors may take a different course than the development of the understanding of creative ones. The most distinct changes in the ability of understanding metaphors concerning humans appear at the age of eight.

RECENZJA:

Bogumiła Baumgartner (2008), Przeżyć dwujęzyczność. Jak wychować dziecko dwujęzycznie

Gdańsk: Wydawnictwo Harmonia

80 lat psychologii rozwojowej na Uniwersytecie Jagiellońskim:

sprawozdanie z sesji naukowej upamiętniającej osiemdziesiątą rocznicę założenia Katedry Psychologii Pedagogicznej na Uniwersytecie Jagiellońskim