Pragmatics 5:1.33-44.

International Pragmatics Association

THE PROCESSOF CHILDREN'S ABILITY TO ASK QUESTIONS FROM AN INTERACTIVE PERSPECTIVE

Maria Rosa 5o16Planas

Introduction Childrenbegin to ask questionsat around two years of age and develop the skill throughout early childhood.This laboriousand complex ability is due to changes that take place on an individual level in the cogniiive, linguistic and p.ugrnuti. domains, and also to interpersonalfactors - the intluenceof adult interlocutorsin thisprocess. Interrogative utterances frequentlyappearin the linguisicrepertoireof adults who interactwith very young children.Various authorswho have studied dialogue betweenadults and children have noted this and have debated the function of questions within this dialogue. Savonic (1975) observed that adults more frequently use questions than declarative or interrogativeproductionsin theseinteractions, and that this tendency reverses when children begin to form questions. Garvey(I975) considers that adults usequestions that perform the function of indirectrequests for action (e.g.,will you giveme the ball?) rather than imperativeforms suchas "giveme the ball" to control children's behavior. For Olsen-Fulero(1983)questions are amongthe most frequent meansused in conversation to pass the turn. This author considersthat for adults interacting with youngchildren the aim of questions is to elicit a verbal interventiontrom their interlocutors, and that three-yearold children are more likely to accept their turn to speak after a question than after a declarativeutterance. Adults are fully conscious of the limitations of the communicativeskills of the children and use questions to keep the conversation going.Snow(1986)stresses the facilitatingnature of questions in general,and laysspecialemphasis on the role of clarifyingquestions in bringingchildren into the conversation:
'Seeing children as relatively incompetent conversationalpartners helps us to understand why languageaddressedto children is so full of questions (attempts to pass the turn to the child), clariffing questions and expansions(attempts to clari$r and upgrade child turns)."

As can be seen,thesestudiesall note that questions appear very frequently in the speech of adults who interact with children under the age of three. The functionsattributed to adults' questionsare, on the one hand, encouragingthe verbal intervention of children in the conversation,and, on the other, making possible an indirect form of control of the children'sbehavior.

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The study of the developmentof children's questions The studiesof Malrieu and l.aurentis (1966)and Tran-Thonget al (1978) indicate that children'sfirst questionsappear during the secondyear of life, due to factors related to the activityin which they are engaged, and to interpersonal factorsrelated to the role of their adult interlocutors.These utterancescontain a singleelement, produced with a rising tone. Between the agesof 18 and 20 months children can perform a seriesof manipulationsof objectsaround them: They put one object on top of another, and put thingstogether and take them apart. They are not yet able to perform activities such as putting a jigsaw together or building a tower with blocks. When children are faced with a problem that they cannot solve they ask adults for the information that they need; this information is askedfor in question form. The children'saim is to obtain information about objectsin their immediate vicinity, and then to act on the basisof the information given.For this reason,the first questionsthat children produce refer to objectsthat are present,or to actions related to the ongoing activity. From the third year onwards, as they develop intellectually,children begin to form questionsabout absentobjectsor people, or about events with no immediate connectionwith the present. They ask about a missingobject, or who has causeda certain thing to happen. In this way, another basic function emerges:Asking questions to acquireinformation. A more recent study(Vaidyanathan1988)stresses the plurifunctionalnature of questions. This study definestwo broad groupsof questions formed by children. The first group includesquestions which aim to obtain information,and the second includesquestionsgiven the genericterm "non-informative", coveringa wide range of functions: Calling the attention of the interlocutor, confirming or clarifying information, obtaining permission,startinga conversation, affirming, proposing or suggesting an action, and prohibiting. With this classificationthe range of possibilities that questions offer expands substantially; it considers aspects which go beyond the simple task of requestinginformation.

Objectivesof the study In the first phase of our project we aim to present a descriptivestudy of the questionsthat appear in the linguisticproduction of children aged between 2 and 3, and of the evolutionthat thesequestions undergoduring this period. We use the term "descriptive" because our objectiveis to studythe content and formal aspects of questionsso as to establisha typology of questionsand thus to determine the function or functionsthat questionsperform in children'sspeech. We will first clarif the type of utterance that we include in the category "question". Since the samples of speech that we analyzecome from dialogues between adults and children we considerthat a question inside a conversationis defined as the production by the speaker of an utterancewhich aims to elicit a response from the interlocutor. As far as form is concerned,the interrogative utterance in Catalan and in Spanishhas one of the following features: a) it retainsthe word order of the declarative sentence: Verb and subjectare not inverted, as is the casewith other languages. The only difference lies in the rising tone in which the question is expressed. In the two utterances"ha llegado

Children's abiliry,b askquestions35 papd" (Daddy has arrived) and "iha llegado popd?" (has Daddy arrived?) it is only this rise in intonation that distinguishes betweenthem. b) the utteranceis headedby an interrogative particle suchas iqu?, (what?) iqui1n?(who?) id6nde? (where?)ipor qu?lwtryz;, e.g.ieut hace la ninai lwr.tat is the girl doing?),iQud es esto?(what's this?),D6ndi estdel coche?(where,s the car?)etc. c) the production of the interrogativemonosyllables tsf?, irto? in response to a declarativesentenceproducedby the interlocutor,e.g.,Adult: papd se ia ido de viaje.child: esf? (Adult: Daddy's gone on a journ.y. Cnito' yes? - or the total or partial repetition of the utteranceproducedby the interlocutor,e.g. Adult: Esro eswn raqueta.Child: iRaqueta? (Adult: This is a racket. Child: Racket?) Methodologr Population Questions made by four children - one girl and three boys between two and three years old - were analyzed. They came from middle-class urban familieswith a high socio-cultural level. Two children, the girl and one of the boys,were monolingual (Catalan) and the others were bilingual in Catalan and Spanish.One was a tamity bilingual and the other an environmental bilingual- the language used in his family is Catalan, but most other people with whom he comesinto-coitact speak Spanish. The use of monolingualsand bilingualsin this project is perfectly valid since the studystresses the content and function of questions rathei than their grammatical or syntactical features.In addition, the syntactical structureof questionsis similar in Catalanand Spanish. As mentionedabove,unlike other languages, Catalan and Spanish do not use the inversionof subjectand verb, or an auxiliaryverb such as "9o" in English. Word order is the same as in declarative utterances, or, alternatively, an interrogativeparticle is used.Both languages can omit the sulleci pronoun,as the subjectis made explicit by the inflection of the verb. hocedure The questions analyzedform part of wider longitudinalstudy. The material used hereconsists of monthly 45-minutevideo recordings of the children in their homes. Natural settings,in which the child and the aclult in question are involved in a commonactivity- such as bath time, mealtimes,and playtime - were selected. Categories of questions analyzed On the basis of the form and content of the children's questions,the following categories were established: Referential questions, regulative questions, instrumentalquestions,and socio-communicative questions. The aim of referential questionsis to acquire information concerningthe physical surroundings (presentor absentobjectsor toys) or the socialenvironment

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(questions about the activity,state,intentionsor experiences of the people in the child's environment,suchas iqu haces?,, what are you doing?,or ite &6ta el coche? do you like the car?); alternatively, the infbrmation requestedmay deal with more general events. Children'squestions about objectsaround them refer basically to the identity of the object. The categoryincludesquestions about the name of the object (the referenceiqu es?,what is it?). Another group of questions centeron the location of an object or person (id6rtde?,where?); the actionsof objectsor people (iqut hace la pelota?,what is the ball doing?) the propertiesof objects(ide qud color es la pelota?.what color is the ball?) or possession (ide qui6n es?,whose is it?). The category referential questions include open questions that request precise information trom the interlocutor (iqut es esto?,what is this?, iqu6 quieres?, what do you want?) and closedquestions which only require an affirmative or negative answer (iquieres clrccolate?, do you want some chocolate?,ite duele la rodilla?,doesyour knee hurt?), known as "yes/no" questions. Open questions always contain an interrogative pronoun such as iqud?, what?, iquitn?, who?, iddnde?, where?), and closed questions are utterancesconstructedin the same way as declarativesentences, but with a rise in intonationat the end. The basicfunction of ref-erential questionsis to obtain information,to find out somethingnew about an object or person.The acquisitionof this information, however,is not followed by immediateaction. Regulativequestionsinclude a range of questions with a common aim, i.e. that the interlocutor should perform a particular action or give a certain piece of information.This action or informationhasa tavorableeffect on the activitythat the questioneris involvedin or is proposing.In both cases the purposeof the question is that someone- the child or the interlocutor- should act. The form of regulative questionsis the same as that of declarativeutterances, exceptthat they end with a rising intonation(e.g.ime abresla puerta?, literally"you open the door for me?"). Within this group a distinctionis made betweenrequests for action,requestsfor guidanceand requestsfor permissionto perform an action. In a requestfor action.the child asksthe adult to perform a specificactivity (e.g. ime ayudas?,will you help me?, literally "you help me?"). Requests for guidance are questions that the child puts to the adult beforecarryingout a specific activity (e.g. iaEt[?, here'! if he/sheis doing a jigsaw and does not know where to put a particularpiece).Requests for permission to perform an actionare questions in which a child asksfor the approval of an adult before performing an action (e.g. iabro?, I open'1, askeda child with a box of crayons in his/herhand. Instrumental questions are thosein which the subjectasksthe interlocutor tor a particular object.They are indirect requests for an object (ime das la raquetaT, will you give me the racket'l). Socio-communicative questions include requests for clarification, confirmation or repetition of the utterance of the previousspeaker.Thesequestions do not contribute new information to the subject of the conversation(Corsaro f97l). Socio-communicative questionsarise in the course of the communication between the chilciand the adult and often express the doubt or surpriseproduced by the fact that the speakerhasnot understood what the other personhasjust said. The aim of socio-communicativequestions is to maintain the flow of the conversationand repair the breakdownsthat occur.

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Results The children in our study used referential questionsmost frequently,followed by questionsand then by instrumentalquestions regulativeand socio-communicative (seefigure 1). were taken into account two variables In the analysis of referentialquestions - the content of the questionsand the age of the subjects.The content of the Two age blocks people and events. questions was divided into three blocks- objects, were defined,from 2 - 2.5 years and from 2.5 - 3, in order to determine whether askedduring the period (seefigure therewere modificationsin the type of questions 2). about objects(figure 3) showsthat the of content of questions The analysis the identityand the relation of the object. concerned proportion of questions highest concerningthe identity of the object includediEt es?,what is it?, cqu6 Questions which aim to discoverthe what is this?, iqui6n es?,who is it?, questions esesto?, nameof an object, person or animal as mentionedabove.The "relation" category questions concerningthe location or an object or person (e.g.id5nde estd included papd?,where is Daddy?,or simply t d6ndeZ, where is the car?,iddttde estd eIcoche?, when the child was looking for a toy and could not find it), and questions where?, of an object, e.g. ide quitrt es la pelota?,whose is the ball?. aboutthe possession involvingthe action of a moving object or person,e.g.iqu hace?,what Questions is sheihe/it doing? were lessfrequent, and the least frequent of all were questions the properties of objects and animals; in this case most questions concerning concerned color. As for age,the secondvariable,in both age groups questionsabout objects were the most frequent. Figure 2 showsthat the questionsthat children ask to acquire information about the adult interlocutor or about matters or eventsof a more general nature markedly from 2.5 to 3 years. Children show more interest in their increased interlocutor as they grow older. The state, experience or intentions of the interlocutorstimulate the production of these questions;one child touched his minder'scheek,and askeditata pupaZ, (have you hurt yourself?) The questions about events refer to more general aspects of the for a particular phenomenon that Children try to find explanations surroundings. .9.ipor qudpica el jabdn?,why doessoap sting?,askeda child in the theyobserve, bath; ipapd se va?, is Daddy going?, asked a child on seeing that his father was the room. The children also showedinterestin words that they heard and leaving what is music? or iqu es un problema?, that were new to them: iqut es la mrtsica?, whatis a problem?,askeda child after hearinghis mother use the words.At around the age of three, children are observedto show a growing interest in the meaning Children's of words.This attitude revealsa changein their cognitivecapabilities. questions diversiff in terms of content and passfrom being simple requestsfor the nameof an object to being questionsabout the meaningof specificwords. (seefigure 4) requests for guidancewere by far Among regulativequestions the mostfrequent.Children involvedin an activityturned repeatedlyto adultswhen theydid not know how to proceed.Requestsfor action, either involving the adult

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directly,such as iabres?,open (the door)? askedby a child to his mother, or those proposinga joint activity betweenadult and child, e.g.ipintamos?,shall we paint?, ljugamos con el tren?,shall we play with the train?, again child to mother, came second.Requestsfor permissionto perform an action were a distant third. questions,clariffing questionswere the most Among socio-communicative frequent (see figure 5). In these questions,as mentioned above, children repeat totally or in part the utterance produced immediately before by their adult interlocutor.Requestsfor clarificationshow that the child does not know certain words or expressions used by the adult. They constitutea devicethat the child uses to obtain further information about what hasjust been said.Some examples: 1. Adult (A) (holding a toy in her arms): El Snoopyestdcon la raqueta,, (Snoopy'sgot a racket). Child (C): traqueta?(racket?) An adult and child looking at a picture book: A: iMira, aquf van de paseo! (Look, they [some bears] are going for a walk!) C: iPateo?(Walk?) (mispronounced) A: Es la cunita donde hace nondn (It's the cot where [the bear] goesbye-byes) C: iNon6s? (Bye-byes?) A: S[, corno rri. (Yes, like you).

2.

3.

Confirmationquestions appearlessfrequentlythan requests for clarification. As mentionedabove,thesequestions showthe speaker's surpriseor disbeliefat the information he/she has just received.They are the monosyllables esf? and ino? which the child usesin responseto an utteranceby an adult. Two examples: 4.

5.

A: C: A:
C:

Papd no vendrda cenar. Daddy isn't coming for supper. iNo? (No?) Ha venido el seitor del sttper.The man from the supermarket has come. |SIT (Yes?)

Discussion The content of questionschanges with the age of the subjects. Betweenthe agesof two and two and a half, questionsabout objectspredominate;between two and a half and three, these questionsare still the most frequent, although there is a notable increase in questionsabout people, and especiallyabout their activities, experiences and states. This appearsto indicatethat initially children are interested in physical entities (objects,people and animals) and in identifying and naming them. During the first phasethe priority is to discoverthe namesof objectsand the interest in information about the activitiesof animals and people is only minor. Another topic which arousesa considerable number of questionsis the location of objects. Children are used to objects being in certain specific places and are surprisedif they are not there. When they do not find a particular object, they ask

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the questionid6nde estd?(where is it?). In contrast,childrenappear lessinterested in the properties of objectsaround them, such as color, shape or size. One plausible explanation for the formulation of the type of referential questions analyzedhere lies in the stage of psychological development of these children,and the level of their knowledgeof reality. In a number of works Piaget propoundedthat languageis a logical consequence of the prior development of certaincognitivestructures. Bloom, in studiesof children'sfirst productions(1973, noted that children learn precisely 1975) thosewords and structuresthat codifu the conceptualnotions of the world of objects, events and relations. According to Bloom,during the sensorimotorperiod childrenlearn that thingsexist,stop existing and then return. They also realize that people do things with objects and that objectscan be possessed and located in space.It therefore seemsreasonableto will address expect that during the third year of life children'sreferentialquestions subjects which are the continuationof the knowledgeconstructedduring the these period - where an object is, what it does,what it is called,and who it sensorimotor belongs to. Regulative questions aim to influence the behavior of the interlocutor, requesting help, guidance or permissionto perform an action. They expressan indirectrequestfor action and their aim is to make the adult act or facilitate the actionof the child, on the basisof the informationthat the adult provides.This type of questiondemonstratesagain the importance of action in the initial phasesof development. At the ages studied here, most of the activitiesthat the children perform center on action and the manipulationof objects.However, the children present limitationsdue to their inexperience and age.This inexperience bringswith it an inability to surmount certain problems; for this reason children ask the interacting adult for help with the most immediate difficulties.The presence of questionsand especiallyindirect requestsfor action and requestsfor regulative guidance confirm the resultsof previousstudies which note that what driveschildren to askquestions in the first stages of development is the need to act (Laurentis and Malrieu 1966;' Tran-Thong et al 1978). questions Socio-communicative difter from thosethat we havejust examined since they arisein response to the coursethat the conversation takes.The origin of questions these is to be found then in the linguisticutterances of the speaker.These utterances causesurprisein the child because of the information that they contain, or incomprehension becauseof the choice of vocabulary,or, alternatively,may questions simply be inaudible.In all thesecases the functionof socio-communicative is to reestablish the communicative situation by clarification, repetition or confirmation of the utteranceor word producedby the adult.

Conclusions form a part of the linguisticrepertoire of children from a very early age. Questions They reflect children's cognitive and social development and have a markedly nature, since the questionsare addressed interpersonal to the adult interlocutor. perform wide a of in range roles the speech of children agedbetweentwo Questions and three. They serve to obtain information about the surroundings(referential questions), act as indirect requestsfor action (regulativequestions)and as indirect

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requests for objects (instrumental questions) and ask for clarification or confirmation of an ambiguous or unclear message in the interests of the continuationof the dialogue(socio-communicative questions).

KINDSOF QUESTION ASKED BY

CHILDREN
Ref. 345 .- _t 49%

Ins.16 23% Reg. 1

24.7o/o

c 169 24%
Ref..=Referential Reg - Regulative l n s .=In s tru m e n ta l S-C .=S o c i o c o mmu n i cati ve

Figure 1.

Children's ability to ask questions

4I

Referential Questions
related to age
200

150

100

rAge 2 to 2'.6 years ffiAge2:6to 3 years

50

0l

Objects
Fig ure 2

Events

questions. Referential Objects

120 100 80 60 40 20 0
Figure 3
4n7

irContentof question i

ldentity

Action

Relation Quality

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Maria Rosa 5o16 Plaruts

questions Regulative
120 100 80 60 40 20 108

0 for action Requests Requests for permission Requests for guidance

Figure4

55

I -

I
-

11

questions nicative Socio-commu

160 140 120 100 BO 60 40 20 0
138

of question irContent I
J 1

31

Requests for clarifi cation for confirmation Requests

Figure5

Chitdren's abiliq' tu ask questions References

43

granrntars. Cambridge, Mass: Bloom, L. (1970) Language developntent:Fornt andfunction in enrcrging MIT Press. Bloom, L. (1973) One word at a tinrc: The use of single-word utterances before synt(a. The Hague: Mouton. Brown, R. (1968) "Developmental of wh-questions in child speech."Journal of Verbal Leaming and Verbal Behavior 7 .279 -90. Cairns,H.S. & J.R. Hsu (1978) "Who, why, when and how: A developmentalstudy."Joumal of Child Language5.477-48. W.A. (1977) "The clarification requests as a feature of adult interactive styles with young C,orsaro, children." Language in Society 6.183-207. Erreich,A. (1984) "lrarning how to ask: Patterns of inversion in yes-no and wh-questions."Journal of Child Language 579-592. Ervin-Tripp, S. & D. Gordon (1980) "The development of requests."In R. Schiefelbusch (ed.), Langtage competence:Assesententand intervenliore.New York: College-Hill Press. Folger,J.P. & R.S. Chapman (1978) "A pragmatic analysisof spontaneousimitations." Joumal of Child Language 5.25-38. Gallagher,T. (1981) "Contingent query sequenceswithin adult-child discourse."Journal of Child Langtage 8.51-62. Garvey,C. (1975) "Requests and responsesin children's speech"Joumal of Child Language 2,4I-63. Hekken,Suus van, M. Dent & H. Cathy (1982) "More questionsthan answers:A study of questionanswersequencesin a naturalistic setting." Journal of Child Language 9.445-460. Holzman, M. (1972) "The use of interrogative forms in the verbal interaction of three mothers and Research l.3ll-37. their children." Journal of Psycholinguistics Hood, L. & L. Bloom (1979) "What, when and how about why: A longitudinal study of early 181.1-40. expressions of causality." Monographs Soc.Res.Ch.Devel Johnson, E.E. (1980) "Contingent queries: The first chapter." In H. Giles, W. Robinson & P. Smith (eds.),Language: Social psychologicalperspectives.Oxford: Pergamon Press. James,S.l. & M.A. Seaback (1982) "The pragmatic function of childrcn's questions. Journal of Speech and Heaing Research 5.2-12. Kearsley,G.P. (1976) "Questions and question asking in verbal discourse: A cross-disciplinary Res 5.355-375. review."Ioumal of Psycholinguistics Malrieu, Ph. & M. l:urenties Psychologie457-4'14. (1966) "Questions et pensde chez le jeune enfant." Bulletin de

Meyer, W.J. & J. Shane (1973) "The form and function of children's questions." Journal of Genetic -296. Prychologt 123.285

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Mischler, E.H. (i975) "Studies in dialogue and discourse.II. Types of discourse initiated by and sustained through questioning.n Journal of PsycholinguicsRes 4.99-I21. to mother questionsof varying type and Olsen-Fulero, L. & J. Conforti (1983)'Child responsiveness presentation." Journal of Child Language 10.495-520. Piaget, J. (1968) Laforntation du synbole chez l'enfant. NeuchAtel: Ddlachaux et Niestl6. Przetacznik-Gierowska,M. & M. Ligeza (1990) "Cognitive and interpersonal functions of children's questions." In G. Conti-Ramsden & C.E. Snow (eds.), Children's lunguage 7.69-IU. Hillsdale: Erlbaum Associates. Savic, S. (1975) "Aspects of adult-child communication: The problem of question acquisition." Joumal of Child Language 2.231-260. Savic, S. (1978) "Algunas funciones <lelas preguntas hechaspor los adultos a los niflos pequeflos.' In Pablo del Rio (ed.), Syntposiuntde Ia Asociaci6n de Psicologta Cientffica Francesa l,a gdnesis del lenguaje. Madrid, 173-182. Shatz, M. (1979) "How to do things by asking:Form-function pairings in mothers questionsand their rclations to children's responses.'Child Dev'elopnrcnt 4.20I-ZI3 Snow, C.(19'lZ) "Mothers'speech to children learning." Child Development 43.549-565. Snow, C. (1986) "Conversations with children." In P. Fletcher & M. Garman (eds.), Language acquisition 69-89. Tyack, D. & D. Ingram "Children's production and the comprehensionof questions;'Joumal of Child Language 4.211-224" Trang-Thong, K. Barbot & M. Bridier "La actitud interrogadora en el niflo." Infancia y Aprendizaje 69-81" Vaidyanathan, R. (1988) "Development of forms and functions of interrogatives in children: A longitudinal study in Tamil." Journal of Child language15:3.533-549.