ABSTRACT
In our everyday interactions, we rarely make simple statements about the physical world around us, like, The sky is blue, simply to assert the fact. Much of what we do with language is to position ourselves in relation to our interlocutor, show solidarity or distance, indicate our likes and dislikes, or make some aspect of our reasoning manifest. When young children are first learning language, they do a lot of pointing and naming. They seem to be intent on declaring that particular things exist in the world and showing their listeners that they have learned the conventional label for that thing. However, even at this early stage, children are using language not just to name, but to ask for things, to indicate likes (or dislikes), or to draw attention to things the child thinks the other person might be interested in. They also use language to indicate their reasoning and expectations. For instance, when the young child in the kitchen hears a garage door slam and says, “Daddy!” the child is making a rudimentary logical prediction about who made the garage door slam and who is likely to momentarily be walking through the door. As I pointed out in Chapter 2, Tomasello (2003), among others, argues that by around 10 months, children are developing an understanding that other people share the same kinds of motivations and reactions as they do. By this time, children also understand that they cannot communicate by just looking into their interlocutor's eyes and hoping the listener understands. They use (non-linguistic) noises, actions (like spitting out food they do not like), gestures and finally words to express themselves. As they mature into more fully participating members of their social-discourse community, they find more and more need to be able to use language to appropriately situate themselves, express their ability to undertake actions, express their understanding of their social obligations and express their reasoning (or logical predictions).
