ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an overview of some key topics in research on the development of pragmatic abilities and their role in language acquisition. It provides an introduction to the currently most active research areas in developmental pragmatics. Developmental pragmatics is concerned with how children acquire the ability to use language for communicative purposes, enabling them to express their own intentions and draw inferences about the intentions of others. The chapter looks at pragmatic aspects of word learning, that is, the pragmatic abilities or mechanisms required for acquiring conventional, context-independent mappings between word forms and meanings. Children use Social “pragmatic information” to infer the speaker’s intention in using a word that is new to them. Referential communication is a joint activity which relies heavily on interlocutors’ pragmatic competence. A particularly active research area within developmental and experimental pragmatics addresses children’s and adults’ understanding of so-called scalar implicatures.
