A Case Study On Children's Speech Act In Requesting

With the development of pragmatic and children language competence study,the research about children's utterance and pragmatic competence has sprung up in recent years.As the representative speech act,request is gradually becoming the focus of study.Therefore,the research on children's speech act in questioning is worth exploring more deeply.On the basis of the previous researches,this thesis tries to excavate the characteristics and regular patterns of 4-6 year-old children in the TV show “Dad,Where Are We Going” with the aid of Speech Act Theory and Children Development Theory.According to the study,the author finds out that the strategies and features of children's requests are related to children's cognitive capacity,development level and social competence to the great extent.The investigation on children's speech act as well as communicative competence is propitious to the development and improvement of children's language education and communicative competence.There are five chapters in the thesis.The first chapter illustrates the research background,research questions,significance of the research,and the outline of the thesis.The second chapter reviews the development of Speech Act,Requests and Children's Requests abroad and at home.The third chapter is the theoretical framework,including Speech Act Theory,Requests,Politeness and Piaget's Children Development Theory.The fourth chapter is data analysis and discussion on the basis of a 4-year old child's request speech act in the TV show “Dad,Where Are We Going”.Based on Angela's utterances,the author gives an analysis on requests and makes an exploration of reasons.Chapter Five is conclusion.Through analysis,the author summarizes that children's requests are different from adults,they tend to use declaratives to make direct requests,interrogatives to make conventional indirect requests;and their non-conventional indirect requests require hearers to understand depending more on the context.Meanwhile,children are liable to use Alerters;and when they make a request,like adults they will also provide supportive moves and apply politeness strategy.In terms of Piaget's Children Development Theory,the author finds out that being egocentric,lacking of cognitive competence as well as the absence of necessary social and cultural knowledge are the deep reasons of children's requesting language features.These findings can assist people to understand children's utterances in a better way and communicate with children much more successfully.They can also provide pieces of credible guidance to the children's language education and communicative competence enhancement.Besides,these findings enlighten parents and educators to figure out more ways to help children use language to express themselves correctly and fluently.