Utilisation of Relevance in Answering Questions in a Context by Typically Developing Tamil Speaking Children

Abstract

This study explored whether incorrect answers of children for questions that are pragmatically demanding, was due to an inability to assimilate the relevant information from a particular scenario. One hundred and thirty-eight typically developing Tamil speaking children from 6;1-9;0 years of age participated in this study. While answering ‘why’ questions, or understanding indirect answers to questions, the child has to use the inferences that can be generated on the basis of the words used. When children grow older, the ability to process implicature occurs by inferring the ‘why’ questions which helps in the recovery of implicature. Ten scenarios in Tamil were developed based on implicature using ‘why’ /jen/ question. Children were asked questions after a scenario was described to each child individually. Later all the responses were analysed based on correct and incorrect answers with respect to the implicated meaning. The incorrect answers were divided into three subcategories; world knowledge, irrelevant and don’t know for further analyses. The results revealed that the number of incorrect answers were highest in 6;1-7;0 year old children when compared to other two older groups. Also, it was evident that children answered the scenarios more easily when; the picture stimuli were shown compared to the verbal only scenario. Results are discussed in relation to Relevance theory of communication and the clinical implications.