ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an illustration of rules of speaking and of pragmatic knowledge and deals with one class of speech acts, directives, speech acts which have the function of getting someone to do something. It discusses how the forms directives may take in communication reflect the relationship between the speaker and the addressee, and their relative power. Such factors may effect the degree of directness of the directive. The chapter focuses on the forms directives tend to take in classroom settings. It shows how the successful interpetation of the teachers directive by young children requires a matching of a complex variety of linguistic forms to the social rules governing interaction and learning in a classroom setting, a matching which is sometimes achieved through a process of negotiation. The acquisition of such skills is illustrative of the vast complex of different types of communicative and interpretive skills that underlie successful communication.
