In previous studies, it has been proven that contextual and social factors may influence acquisition of language use among children (Bornstein, Haynes, Painter, and Genevro, 2000; Hoff, 2003; Howe and Recchia, 2006; Mannle, Barton, and Tomasello, 1992; Reese and Fivush, 1993; Youngblade and Dunn, 1995). Gender, as the most
studied social factor, was not included in this study since it has already been found to be irrelevant with regard to children‘s understanding of promises (Astington, 1988a).
Therefore, in the present study, we mainly examined the influence of social status on the development of children‘s understanding of promise. Many studies have shown that social status may influence children‘s acquisition of language use (Hoff, 2010;
Holmes, 1988; Sachs and Devin, 1976; Shatz and Gelman, 1973). In addition to this social factor, we explored children‘s strategy use of making a promise and examined Searle‘s conditions of promise. Therefore, the outcome of the promise, the sincerity condition, and the explicitness of the propositional content were all taken into consideration during the course of this study.
The factors mentioned above were examined using three different tasks: two comprehension tasks and one production task. Before the outcome was presented, the participants completed a production task and a comprehension task, and had to do another comprehension task after the outcome of the promise was shown. The production task was employed to examine the participants‘ strategies for making a commitment, and the comprehension tasks were designed to elicit the participants‘
promise judgments.
In this experiment, there were total sixteen experimental items and four fillers.
All the test items used in the tasks were organized into a short story with sixteen different scenarios made by the researcher. Every scenario included three experimental questions concerning two comprehension questions and one production question. Half of the comprehension questions were asked before the outcome was announced, and the other half of the comprehension questions were asked after the outcome—either positive or negative—was told. In each scenario, the main character,
―Yuanyuan‖, made a promise to another character of a different social status. The
the characters is illustrated in Table 3-2.
Table 3-2. Relation of Social Status between the Characters Main Character
―Yuanyuan‖
Social
Status Other Characters
L H
Principal Teacher
HL
Younger brother Younger sister
To avoid the influence of the participants‘ actual age, only unequal social status was considered in this study. If the character was an elder, the social status was considered higher, such as the case of the main character‘s school principal and teacher. If the character was younger than the main character, the social status was considered lower, such as the case of Yuanyuan‘s younger siblings.
While Yuanyuan was making a promise, the form used never included the performative verb daying ‗promise‘, because the performative verb normally sounds formal. In the explicit condition, Yuanyuan expressed the indicator of propositional content explicitly. That is, Yuanyuan made the promise with explicit statement of future action; for example, Hao, wo saowan di hui qu bang ni na caisezhi ‗Okay, I‘ll
get the color paper for you after I sweep the floor.‘ On the other hand, the promises Yuanyuan made were considered unclear with an implied content of promise in the implicit condition; for instance, Hao, dengyixia ‗Okay, wait a second.‘ In the sincere condition, Yuanyuan was willing to help the promisee and make a promise. In the insincere condition, Yuanyuan was distracted by other things to keep him from making a promise, so that he would make an insincere promise to the promisee.
Yuanyuan‘s unwillingness was represented by an animated ―thought bubble‖.
The story and tasks were conducted with an animation using Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007. The details of the tasks in the experiment are explained in the following subsections (Sections 3.2.1–3.2.3).
3.2.1 The Production Task
The purpose of this task was to examine the participants‘ strategies for making a commitment. A summary of the production task design is given in Table 3-3 and the complete version of the task scenarios can be found in Appendix A.
Table 3-3. Design of the Production Task
Social Status Sincerity Condition Number of Items
LH + 4
− 4
HL + 4
− 4
Fillers 4
Total 20
To avoid any experimental bias, there were four items for each category and twenty items in total for this task. The subjects were asked to pretend that they are the promiser, Yuanyuan, in the scenarios facing different situations. They were asked to provide their own way of making a commitment. The following scenario is an
example which the subjects dealt with:
Jintian de gongke hao nan. Meimei dou bu hui xie, suiyi qing Yuanyuan jiao ta
xie gongke. Dangshi Yuanyuan xiang xian xie wan ziji de gongke zai jiao meimei xie gongke. Yuanyuan shuo, ‘Hao, dengyixia.’
Today’s homework is really hard. Yuanyuan’s little sister doesn’t know how to do it at all. She asks Yuanyuan to help her, but Yuanyuan wants to finish his own homework first, so he says, ‘Okay, wait a second.’
In each scenario, the participants heard an experimental question. Table 3-4 is an example of the scenario.
Table 3-4. Example Scenario in the Production Task
The subjects saw: The subjects heard:
Scene 1
Ruguo ni shi Yuanyuan,
yao daying meimei jiao ta xie gongke de hua, ni hui zenme shuo ne?
‗If you are Yuanyuan,
how would you say to make a promise to your sister?
Scene 2
……
The question was designed to elicit their strategies for making promises. They were asked to provide the sentence of making a promise spontaneously.
3.2.2 The First Comprehension Task
In the first comprehension task, the same scenario was used for the production task. A summary of the production task design is given in Table 3-5.
Table 3-5. Design of the First Comprehension Task Social
Status
Sincerity
Condition Explicitness Number of Items
LH Yuanyuan, made a promise to another character with higher or lower social status. For example, the subjects heard the following scenario:
Mingtian shi xiaozhang de shengri. Laoshi xiang zuo yizhang kapian gei xiaozhang. Dan jiaoshi li meiyou caisezhi le. Suoyi laoshi yao Yuanyuan qu bangongshi bang ta na. Keshi Yuanyuan zhengzai saodi. Ta geng laoshi shuo, ‘Hao, wo sao wan di hui qu bang ni na caisezhi.’
‘Tomorrow is the principal’s birthday. Yuanyuan’s teacher wants to make a card for him, but she does not have enough color paper in the class room. She asks Yuanyuan to help her get some from the office. Yuanyuan is sweeping the floor and he says, ‘Okay, I’ll get the color paper for you after I’ve finished sweeping.’
In each scenario, the subjects heard a question concerning their promise judgment before the outcome of the promise was informed. An example of the scenario used in the first comprehension task is illustrated in Table 3-6:
Table 3-6. Example Scenario in the First Comprehension Task
The subjects saw: The subjects heard:
Scene 1
Ni juede Yuanyuan suan
bu suan shi daying laoshi yijian shiqing ne? Weisheme?
‘Do you think Yuanyuan has promised his teacher something? Why?’
Scene 2
The subjects had to provide a yes or no answer for a promise judgment according to their understanding of promises. Also, they were asked to justify for their answers.
3.2.3 The Second Comprehension Task
In the second comprehension task, the same scenarios used in the previous tasks were used again. However, unlike the first comprehension task, the outcome was told
in the second comprehension task. To systematically examine the outcome effect, two types of outcomes were designed: positive (the promiser carries out the promising action) and negative (the promiser breaks the promise). The promise judgment was included in order to see if the participants‘ promise judgments were affected by the outcome of the promise. A summary of this task design is given in Table 3-7.
Table 3-7. Design of the Second Comprehension Task Social
Status
Sincere
Condition Explicitness Outcome Number of Items
LH
Similarly, a question was asked in the scenario to examine the participants‘ knowledge of promises. An example of the second comprehension task is shown in Table 3-8.
Table 3-8. Example Scenario in the Second Comprehension Task
The subjects saw: The subjects heard:
Scene 1
Houlai, Yuanyuan sao
wan di jiu qu bang laoshi na zhi le.
Ni juede Yuanyuan suan bu suan zhende daying le laoshi yijian shiqing ne?
Weisheme?
‘After Yuanyuan sweeps the floor, he helps the teacher to get the color paper.
Do you think Yuanyuan has really promised his teacher something? Why?’
Scene 2
Just as they did in the first comprehension task, the subjects were asked to see if Yuanyuan really made a promise to the promisee, and they had to provide explanation for their answer. The procedure of the experiment is presented in Section 3.3.