Ackerman B P
Child Dev. 1981;52(4):1224-30.
The hypothesis of this study was that young children respond incorrectly in interpreting ambiguous communications in referential tasks because they respond to the illocutionary performative force rather than the locutionary content of the communications. However, these children can evaluate locutionary adequacy when the performative force is deemphasized. In 2 experiments, young children were induced to discriminate between informative and ambiguous communications according to either the performative or locutionary adequacy of the communications. In experiment 1, kindergarten and second-grade children were asked to assign adequate communications to an informative speaker and ambiguous communications to an ambiguous speaker. In experiment 2, kindergarten children were required to choose an object or signal that an object choice was impossible in response to adequate or inadequate communications uttered by a speaker. The results of both experiments showed that correct responses of the kindergarten children to the ambiguous communications improved when they responded to the locutionary rather than the performative force of the communications.
本研究的假设是，幼儿在指代任务中对模糊交流的理解会出现错误，因为他们对交流的言外施为力量而非言内内容做出反应。然而，当施为力量被弱化时，这些儿童能够评估言内充分性。在两项实验中，根据交流的施为或言内充分性，引导幼儿区分信息性交流和模糊交流。在实验1中，要求幼儿园儿童和二年级学生将充分的交流分配给提供信息的说话者，将模糊的交流分配给表述模糊的说话者。在实验2中，要求幼儿园儿童根据说话者说出的充分或不充分的交流，选择一个物体或表明无法选择物体的信号。两项实验的结果均表明，当幼儿园儿童根据交流的言内而非施为力量做出反应时，他们对模糊交流的正确反应有所改善。
