9300063 Ervin-Tripp The purpose of this dissertation project is to examine the acquisition and development of language which reflects pragmatic and social knowledge in young Japanese children. A detailed analysis of the early language usage of preschool children in different contexts will provide insight into their increasingly sophisticated sociolinguistic awareness. This work will fill a long-standing void within the field of language acquisition, as cross-linguistic research on this topic has just begun to appear in the literature. The student will study Japanese children's knowledge of the sociolinguistic rules that underlie appropriate language use by examining the repertoire of registers that young children possess, the specific linguistic devices they use to mark distinct registers and the development of these registers. The objectives of this research are (1) to gain insight into the social and pragmatic understanding of young children, (2) to attain a clearer understanding of the processes by which children become socialized through language, (3) to compile a detailed description of how Japanese children acquire pragmatic competence, and (4) to illustrate how pragmatic factors play a crucial role in the selection of syntactic and lexical forms even in preschool children. Japanese is ideal for studying language use which reflects social and pragmatic knowledge, as this type of information is clearly grammaticized and lexicalized in the language. Data will be collected through role-play situations, naturalistic observations in the home and at school as well as in interviews with children, their mothe rs and their teachers. ' J ( , > # o g Õ d ? $ C m W 6 . L 5 I E G q Y v 2 D i - _ ~ O ? 1 x * j ? * k K = j B X D R d 1 8 x / r 8 n * | 6 5 : B M R ? y X > 5 X F _ r q { = a v p W B / m } > . 2 ` 1 8 ~ ! ! F ( Times New Roman Symbol & Arial " h E E 3 A abstract Deidre Renee Burton Deidre Renee Burton
