ABSTRACT
Sharing is the most basic pragmatic element of language, and the most pervasive. Even the solitary student shaping a thought, or the speaker who mutters alone, has temporarily become both writer and judge, both speaker and hearer, and the two elements share language as other communication does. The shaping function of language has been emphasized by the Russian psychologists Vygotsky and Luria and must inevitably be a part of a study of the acquisition and development of language by children. In Sapir's words the product grows with the instrument, and thought may be no more conceivable without speech than is mathematical reasoning practicable without the lever of an appropriate symbolism. The shaping of another's thought, the informative or regulatory use of language, showing (telling that) or commanding (telling to), has received most attention from linguists and many write as though showing or 'telling that' were the only important use of language.
