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(1)國立臺灣師範大學英語學系 碩 士. 論 文. Master Thesis Graduate Institute of English National Taiwan Normal University. 以中文為母語的兒童承諾概念發展之實證研究. The Pragmatic Development of Understanding of the Speech Act of Promising among Chinese-Speaking Children. 指導教授:陳純音博士 Advisor: Dr. Chun-yin Doris Chen 研究生:王懿 Student: Yi Wang. 中 華 民 國 一○一 年 五 月 May, 2012.

(2) 摘. 要. 本研究旨在探討以中文為母語之兒童對承諾的理解,並驗證不同操縱變因 (如:被承諾者的社會地位、承諾的結果、承諾者的誠意、承諾的明確性)對兒 童承諾概念的影響。研究方法包含在不同情境下的承諾判斷及承諾表達兩種實驗 題型。研究對象分為五組,每組二十人,由平均年齡為六歲至九歲的兒童與成人 共一百位所組成。 研究發現如下:承諾判斷結果顯示,較年長的受試者與控制組皆認為對長輩 做的承諾才算數,而較年幼的受試者對承諾的判斷則不會受到被承諾者不同社會 地位的影響。兒童受承諾結果的影響較深,與成人達顯著差異,相較於未實踐的 諾言,兒童較認可確實完成的承諾,顯示出在兒童的承諾概念中,承諾的結果與 承諾本身是密不可分的。然而,所有受試者對承諾的判斷並未受到承諾者誠意的 影響,顯示無誠意的承諾仍被認為是一個承諾。此外,所有組別的受試者均較容 易認可清楚表達出內容的承諾。 在承諾表達結果中發現,以中文為母語的兒童於六歲左右便可做出承諾。在 策略上,受試者傾向做出內容清楚呈現的承諾。較年長的兒童在表達明確性上較 接近成人。施為動詞(performative verb) 「答應」在整體的使用上並不明顯,顯 然不構成承諾的形成要素。. 關鍵字:母語習得、言語行為、承諾. i.

(3) ABSTRACT. The present study aims to investigate the pragmatic development of Chinese-speaking children‘s understanding of the speech act of promising by examining four factors which affect their promise judgments and production of promises: the promisee‘s social status, the outcome of the promise, the promiser‘s sincerity, and the explicitness of making the promise. Two comprehension tasks and one production task were conducted using a total of one hundred subjects. The subjects were divided into five groups of twenty: four experimental groups (consisting of children aged 6 to 9) and one control group (adults). With regard to the comprehension tasks, the study found that the older subjects and the control group were more likely to recognize a promise made to a promisee of superior social status as an actual promise than a promise made to a promisee of inferior social status. On the other hand, the younger subjects did not exhibit sensitivity to the social status of the promisee. In addition, the younger subjects were more greatly affected by the outcome of a promise than the other groups, and it was also found that they had a greater difficulty distinguishing words from deeds; that is to say, younger children could not distinguish a promise as it exists as a speech act from the actual action associated with the promise. However, in terms of what role sincerity plays in the judging of promises, it was discovered that a promiser‘s sincerity had no effect whatsoever on the promise judgment of any of the participants. This indicates that an insincere promise was still considered to be a promise by all groups. Furthermore, a promise made explicitly with a clear statement of a future act was more likely to be considered as an effective promise by all participants. Finally, the results of the production task revealed that Chinese-speaking children are readily capable of making a commitment by the age of six. The ii.

(4) promising strategy most frequently adopted among all groups was to state the future act explicitly. The younger children participating in the study showed greater difficulty in making a promise as explicitly as the older children and adults. In all of the groups, the performative verb daying ‗promise‘ was rarely found in our data. This definitively proves that daying ‗promise‘ does not constitute a significant element of the speech act of promising.. Keywords: first language acquisition, speech act, promise. iii.

(5) ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. On February 20, 2012, a dream that I had harbored for many years finally came true at last. I had waited so long—so long—for this moment to finally arrive. My only grievance is that, in the end, this dream was realized later than I had expected. All of those tireless days and restless nights I spent turning my dream into a reality have long since gone. That time can never be recovered. The frustration, anguish, and bittersweet tears will forever be embedded in my memory. Indeed, they have helped shape me into the person I am today. My path was long and winding. It was narrow and dark at times and sometimes left me with feelings of foreboding and solitude. As I look back at this long, labyrinthine path behind me, what can I see? The time I spent laboring away at my thesis was, without a doubt, one of the most difficult and trying periods of my entire life. I lost a good friend who, worse yet, made my life more difficult than it already was—adding salt to my wounds, as it were. I suppose that, in the grand scheme of things, there are simply some unscrupulous people in this world. Thankfully, I also discovered that many people truly care about me. While no amount of thanks could ever fully express the infinite gratitude I have for these people in my life, I would still like to acknowledge them for helping me see the light at the tunnel and, in the end, soar to greater heights than I had ever imagined. First and foremost, I would like to extend my deepest, most heartfelt thanks to my advisor, Dr. Chun-yin Doris Chen, for her enduring support, guidance, and steadfast encouragement which helped me overcome the vast amount of obstacles I encountered while carrying out this study from its very inception to the final stage. I would also like to express my gratitude to the committee members, Dr. Miao-Hsia Chang and Dr. Rueih-Lirng Fahn, for their invaluable insights given during the preparation and completion of this study. iv.

(6) It is a pleasure to thank the teachers at NTNU for their patience, inspiration, and the valuable assistance which helped make this study a success. All of the subjects who participated in this study and turned this thesis into a reality are also deserving of gratitude and recognition for their effort. In addition, I would like to thank the teachers and parents for their cooperation during the data collection. I am indebted to many of my friends who supported me (in alphabetic order): Brian Anton Borse, Yu-Hsin Chang, Yuechi Chang, Chiou-huei Chen, Shih-Han Chen, Fu-Sheng Chuang, Jane Chung, Weiyun Hsu, Bartleby Hsui, Yun Kuan, Po-Min Lei, Stella Liu, Sally Tsai, Wan-Jhen Yan, Elvis Yang, and Chun-Cheng Yeh, among others. I offer my regards, thanks, and best wishes to all those who supported me throughout the course of completing this project. Lastly, I owe my deepest gratitude to my family for constantly giving me the strength and support I needed to forge on during this formidable and onerous journey. There are simply no words that could ever express my gratefulness for your being in my life. I love you all.. v.

(7) TABLE OF CONTENTS CHINESE ABSTRACT .................................................................................................... i ENGLISH ABSTRACT ................................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................................. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS................................................................................................. vi LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................ ix LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................... xi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .......................................................................................... xii Chapter One Introduction ...........................................................................................1 1.1 Motivation ....................................................................................................1 1.2 Theoretical Framework .................................................................................3 1.3 Research Questions .......................................................................................5 1.4 Significance of the Study ..............................................................................6 1.5 Organization of the Thesis ............................................................................7 Chapter Two Literature Review ..................................................................................8 2.1 Austin‘s (1962) Speech Act Theory ...............................................................8 2.2 Theoretical Studies of Promise .................................................................... 11 2.2.1 Searle (1969) .................................................................................... 11 2.2.2 Mey (1993) ...................................................................................... 13 2.2.3 Summary............................................................................................ 16 2.3 Major Components of Promise ....................................................................16 2.3.1 Propositional Content Condition ......................................................... 17 2.3.2 Preparatory Condition ........................................................................ 20 2.3.3 Sincerity Condition ............................................................................ 23 2.3.4 Essential Condition ............................................................................ 24 2.3.5 Summary............................................................................................ 26 2.4 Previous Empirical Studies of Children‘s Understanding of Promise ........... 27 2.4.1 Astington (1988a) ............................................................................ 27 2.4.2 Maas and Abbeduto (2001) .............................................................. 29 2.4.3 Maas (2008) ..................................................................................... 31 2.4.4 Wang (2009) ..................................................................................... 32 2.4.5 Summary............................................................................................ 34 2.5 Summary of Chapter Two ........................................................................... 36 Chapter Three Research Design and Expected Findings............................................ 38. vi.

(8) 3.1 Subjects ...................................................................................................... 38 3.2 Methods and Materials ................................................................................ 39 3.2.1 The Production Task ........................................................................... 42 3.2.2 The First Comprehension Task ........................................................... 44 3.2.3 The Second Comprehension Task ....................................................... 46 3.3 Procedures .................................................................................................. 48 3.3.1 Pilot Study ......................................................................................... 49 3.3.2 Formal Study...................................................................................... 50 3.3.3 Scoring and Statistical Analysis.......................................................... 52 3.4 Summary of Chapter Three ......................................................................... 54 Chapter Four Results and Discussion ........................................................................ 55 4.1 Effects of Social Status ............................................................................. 55 4.1.1 Effects of Social Status on Promise Judgment ....................................55 4.1.2 Interaction between Social Status and Other Factors ........................... 56 4.1.3 General Discussion on Effects of Social Status ................................. 58 4.2 Effects of Outcome ................................................................................... 60 4.2.1 Effects of Outcome on Promise judgment ........................................... 61 4.2.2 Interaction between Outcome and Other Factors................................. 62 4.2.3 General Discussion on Effects of Outcome ....................................... 64 4.3 Effects of Sincerity ................................................................................... 68 4.3.1 Effects of Sincerity on Promise Judgment .......................................... 69 4.3.2 Interaction between Sincerity and Other Factors ................................. 69 4.3.3 General Discussion on Effects of Sincerity ....................................... 71 4.4 Effects of Explicitness .............................................................................. 73 4.4.1 Effects of Explicitness on Promise Judgment .....................................73 4.4.2 Interaction between Explicitness and Other Factors ............................ 74 4.4.3 General Discussion on Effects of Explicitness .................................. 76 4.5 Promising Strategies ................................................................................... 78 4.5.1 General Usage of Promising Strategies ............................................... 79 4.5.2 Effects of Social Status on Promising Strategies ................................. 82 4.5.3 Effects of the Promiser‘s Sincerity on Promising Strategies ................ 83 4.5.4 General Discussion on Promising Strategies ....................................... 84 4.6 Effects of Age ........................................................................................... 88 4.7 Summary of Chapter Four ........................................................................... 93 Chapter Five Conclusion .......................................................................................... 94 5.1 Summary of the Major Findings .................................................................. 94. vii.

(9) 5.2 Limitations of the Present Study and Suggestions for Further Research ....... 96 Bibliography ............................................................................................................ 97 Appendix A: Scenarios Used in the Comprehension and Production Tasks ............. 102 Appendix B: Consent Form .................................................................................... 113. viii.

(10) LIST OF TABLES Table 2-1 Different Dimensions of Speech Acts .........................................................9 Table 2-2 Austin‘s Classification of Illocutionary Acts .............................................. 10 Table 2-3 Different Meanings Implied in the Performative Verb ―Promise‖ ............ 28 Table 2-4 Experimental Design in Wang (2009) ...................................................... 33 Table 2-5 Major Findings and Limitations of the Previous Empirical Studies............ 34 Table 3-1 A Summary of the Subjects ....................................................................... 39 Table 3-2 Relation of Social Status between the Characters ...................................... 41 Table 3-3 Design of the Production Task................................................................... 42 Table 3-4 Example Scenario in the Production Task.................................................. 44 Table 3-5 Design of the First Comprehension Task ................................................... 45 Table 3-6 Example Scenario in the First Comprehension Task .................................. 46 Table 3-7 Design of the Second Comprehension Task ............................................... 47 Table 3-8 Example Scenario in the Second Comprehension Task .............................. 48 Table 3-9 The Types of Promising Strategies ............................................................ 53 Table 4-1 Descriptive Statistics of Yes Responses to the Promise Judgment Questions Concerning Social Status .......................................................................... 56 Table 4-2 Interaction between Social Status and Outcomes ....................................... 57 Table 4-3 Interaction between Social Status and Sincerity ........................................ 57 Table 4-4 Descriptive Statistics of Yes responses to the Promise Judgment Questions Concerning Outcomes ............................................................................... 61 Table 4-5 Descriptive Statistics of Yes Responses to the Promise Judgment Question Concerning Outcome Conditions .............................................................. 62 Table 4-6 Interaction between Outcome Conditions and Social Status ...................... 63 Table 4-7 Interaction between Outcome Conditions and Sincerity ............................ 63 Table 4-8 Descriptive Statistics of Yes Responses to the Promise Judgment Questions Concerning Sincerity................................................................................. 69 Table 4-9 Interaction between the Promiser‘s Sincerity and the Promisee‘s Social Status ........................................................................................................ 70 Table 4-10 Interaction between the Promiser‘s Sincerity and Outcomes ................... 70 Table 4-11 Descriptive Statistics of Yes Responses to the Promise Judgment Questions Concerning Explicitness ......................................................... 74 Table 4-12 Interaction between Social status and Explicitness .................................. 75 Table 4-13 Interaction between Sincerity and Explicitness ....................................... 75 Table 4-14 A Distribution of Promising Strategies Used by the Subjects ................... 79 Table 4-15 Subjects‘ Use of the Performative Verb Daying ...................................... 80 Table 4-16 A Detailed Distribution of Promising Strategies Used by the Subjects .....81. ix.

(11) Table 4-17 A Distribution of Promising Strategies Used by the Subjects Concerning Social Status ........................................................................................... 82 Table 4-18 A Distribution of Promising Strategies Used by the Subjects Concerning Sincerity.................................................................................................. 83. x.

(12) LIST OF FIGURES Figure 3-1 The Order of the Three Tasks in Each Scenario ....................................... 51 Figure 4-1 Mean Scores of Yes Responses to the Promise Judgment Questions Concerning Social Status......................................................................... 88 Figure 4-2 Mean Scores of Yes Responses to the Promise Judgment Questions Concerning Outcomes ............................................................................. 89 Figure 4-3 Mean Scores of Yes Responses to the Promise Judgment Questions Concerning the Outcome Conditions ....................................................... 90 Figure 4-4 Mean Scores of Yes Responses to the Promise Judgment Questions Concerning Sincerity............................................................................... 91 Figure 4-5 Mean Scores of Yes Responses to the Promise Judgment Questions Concerning Explicitness .......................................................................... 92. xi.

(13) LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. CL. classifier. COP. copula. EVI. evidential marker. GEN. genitive. NEG. negative marker. NM. nominalizer. PF. perfective aspect. PN. person/place name. PT. particle. SG. singular. xii.

(14) CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION. 1.1 Motivation Keeping a commitment is recognized as a basic moral in civilized society, a virtue in many cultures, and a valuable trait of human beings worldwide. Psychology studies have shown that breaking a promise is cross-culturally immoral (Keller et al., 2003; Turiel, 1988). It works as a key element in the evolution and development of human civilization. If nobody could keep a promise, the trust inherent between people would dissolve, resulting in a cold and detached social community. In addition, research has proven that children will behave more faithfully after making promises in public (Kulik and Carlino, 1987; Lyon, 2000; Mant and Perner, 1988; Talwar et al., 2002). In Chinese society, the concept of commitment is especially built on the deepest layer of human relationship. The following sayings in Chinese illustrate the importance of keeping promises: (1) Yi yan ji chu, si ma one word since out carriage horse ‗Once you‘ve said something, you can‘t take it back.‘ (2) Yi yan jiu ding. one word nine vessel. nan hard. zhui. chase. ‗My word is my bond.‘ (3) Yi nuo qian jin. one promise thousand gold ‗A promise is worth a thousand catties of gold.‘ (4) Shi yan er fei. eat word and fat ‗People who lie will become fat from swallowing their words.‘ In society today, keeping promises has become a basic moral principle and personal trait. It is also promoted as a fundamental moral for young children. Therefore, in 1.

(15) addition to being a crucial element in terms of moral development and socialization, the concept of making and keeping promises is vital from an educational perspective, and children‘s understanding of the concept of promises is a topic worthy of further exploration. People often make commitments to each other on a daily basis. By using the phrase ―I promise,‖ a commitment is easily established. According to Searle‘s (1969) speech act theory, a promise is still a promise even without one actually saying ―I promise‖. One need not use the performative verb ―promise‖ to explicitly indicate the intended action when uttering something (Austin, 1962; Fraser, 1974). On the other hand, an utterance including ―I promise‖ cannot always be considered a commitment either (Searle, 1969). For example, in the sentence ―You don‘t need to (bring your umbrella with you tomorrow). It will be sunny all day, I promise,‖ the speaker is not forming a commitment to the addressee; rather, s/he is just making a prediction (Astington, 1988a:160). Therefore, the form and insight of a promise may not always match up. While making a commitment might seem like a complicated act, it is not a challenging task for adults. Any adult speaker can recognize a promise without any real difficulty. The intriguing question is how children come to comprehend this complex illocutionary act, which concerns the interaction between the mind of the promiser and promisee, the communication between them, and the nature of the behavior of their communication. Much less understanding, however, has been gained with regard to how exactly children come to understand the relationship between the utterance and action of a promise. Some researchers have examined children‘s understanding of promises from the aspect of cognitive linguistic and social principles (Asington, 1988a; Haris and Nunez, 1996; Maas and Abbeduto, 1998), while others have studied children‘s promise judgment by putting the subjects in a dilemma (Keller 2.

(16) and Wolfgang, 1998; Nysse-Carris, 2002; Zhang et al., 2009). In this study, we were interested to see whether the relationship between people with different social status would act as a factor in the making of promise judgments by children. In addition to this social factor, other factors such as the outcome of promise, the promiser‘s sincerity, the explicitness of the promiser‘s utterances, promising strategies, and age were examined to explore children‘s conception of promise.. 1.2 Theoretical Framework Ever since Austin‘s (1962) initiation of the theory of speech act, it has had an enormous impact on the linguistics field. In recent years, more and more scholars have shown a great interest in the field of language acquisition with regard to speech acts (Bates, 1976; Blum-Kulka, 1987; Bucciarelli et al., 2003; Ervin-Tripp and Gordon, 1986; Michele 2000; Sperber and Noveck, 2004). Given that speech acts are a rather abstract concept in language use, their comprehension, performance, and effect in children‘s communication arouse a lot of attention. According to Searle‘s (1969) analysis of illocutionary forces, a promise is a speech act guaranteeing the completion of a future action. In order to examine Searle‘s conditions of promise, many researchers have studied the syntactic form of a promise, the promiser‘s intention, the outcome of a promise, and other related issues (Astington, 1988a; Bernicot and Laval, 1996; Gibbs and Delaney, 1987; Maas and Abbeduto, 1998, 2001). In this study, we were interested in the effects of the promiser‘s sincerity and the outcome of the promise on Chinese children. Furthermore, we primarily examined social status, the explicitness of promiser‘s utterances, promising strategy, and age because these factors have been proved to have the most effect on children‘s speech act development (Bates, 1976; Bucciarelli, Colle, and 3.

(17) Bruno, 2003; Hoff, 2010; Sell and Rice, 1988; Youngblade and Dunn, 1995). In studies of speech acts, social factors such as age, gender, and social relationships are commonly discussed (Holmes, 1988; Ninio and Snow, 1996; Wolfson, 1983; Wolfson and Manes, 1980; Wolfson, Reisner, and Huber, 1983). Other than these factors, it has been reported that adults are sensitive to the speech of people from different social backgrounds, and that they tend to use different strategies while talking to different people (Chen et al., 1995; Grundy, 2000; Holmes, 1988; Hong, 2011; Wolfson, 1983). Hence, it is reasonable to suspect that children might show similar patterns in their speech. Many studies have proved that contextual and social factors may influence children‘s acquisition of language use (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). Children‘s awareness of social relationships as revealed by shifting registers to suit different social situations has been previously discussed in the literature (Anderson, 1990; Genesee and Nicoladis, 2007; Holmes, 1988; Lanza, 1992; Ochs, 1988; Wolfson, 1983). Among such social factors, we chose to focus on the social status of people since it has been proven that children alter their speech style to adjust to different interlocutors. For example, children exhibit a diverse range of speech patterns when conversing with listeners of different ages; they use syntactically more complex speech and pragmatically more politeness strategies when talking to adults and peers than when talking to a younger sibling (Shatz and Gelman, 1973). Similarly, that children can take account of interlocutor information in making speech choices is supported by evidence that they alter their speech when talking to an adult or to a baby (Sachs and Devin, 1976). Also, it has been reported that childhood morality is better described by accounts of peer relations and the development of social behavior (Damon, 1983). In addition, 4.

(18) children‘s vocabulary use and discourse cohesion may accordingly change with people of different social status by using richer vocabulary and producing more responses to questions in conversation with their mothers than in conversation with their older siblings (Hoff, 2010). In these findings, therefore, it was discovered that social status affects certain properties of children‘s speech. In numerous speech act and politeness research, the terms ‗explicit‘ and ‗implicit‘ were used to examine the relation between different degrees of explicitness and directness (Blum-Kulka, 1987; Brown and Levinsn, 1987; Lakoff, 1990; Werlen, 1983). Different degrees of explicitness were defined in the studies of speech act such as requests, refusals, and apologies; thus, it is worthwhile to examine whether different degrees of explicitness in promise affects children‘s concept of promise (Blum-Kulka and Ohlstain, 1984; Brown and Levinson, 1987; House and Kasper, 1981). In previous empirical studies on children‘s understanding of a promise, most of the experimental designs were based on comprehension tasks aimed at eliciting the concepts of a promise as conceived by children (Astington, 1988a; Bernicot and Laval, 1996; Maas and Abbeduto, 1998, 2001). However, since previous studies on speech acts—such as requests, apologies, compliments, and refusals—have discovered that certain performing strategies are used in the formation of a speech act, it is believed that the analysis of production of promises can also provide profound insight into how a child understands what a promise is (Aijmer, 1996; Bebee, Takahashi, and Uliss-Weltz, 1990; Blum-Kulka and Ohlstain, 1984; Fraser, 1981; Herbert, 1989; Trosborg, 1987).. 1.3 Research Questions In order to explore Chinese children‘s comprehension and pragmatic 5.

(19) knowledge of promises, the present study postulated the following research questions: 1) Does social status act as a factor which affects children‘s understanding of promises and strategies to make such promises? 2) Do children vary their responses to the promise judgment before and/or after being informed of the outcome of the promise? 3) Do Chinese children take the promiser‘s sincerity into consideration while making promise judgments? 4) Does the explicitness of the promiser‘s utterances affect children‘s understanding of promise? 5) What strategies do children use to make a commitment to others? How do the strategies of children differ from those of adults? 6) What is the developmental pattern of Chinese children‘s understanding of promise? The first research question discussed the effects of social status which affect children‘s understanding of a promise. The second research question focused further on the effects of the outcome. The third research question explored the influence of the promiser‘s sincerity, and the fourth research question investigated the explicitness of promise with regard to its effect on promise judgments. The fifth research question examined the production of promises by children. The last research question concerned the developmental tendency of Chinese children‘s concept of a promise.. 1.4 Significance of the Study In previous studies of children‘s understanding of promises, the promisers and promisees in the experimental scenario were all from the same generation (Astington, 1988a; Maas and Abbeduto, 1998, 2001). All of the experimental scenarios consisted of a child making a promise to another child while in a formal setting. However, it is 6.

(20) possible that children may hold different attitudes toward an elder since the factor of social relation has been proved to have an effect on children‘s speech (Anderson, 1990; Genesee and Nicoladis, 2007; Holmes, 1988; Lanza, 1992; Ochs, 1988; Wolfson, 1983). In addition, these previous studies on promises mainly focused on western languages (Astington; 1988a; Bernicot and Laval, 1996; Maas and Abbeduto, 1998, 2001). In the present study, the potential factors were examined, such as social status, the outcome of promise, promiser‘s sincerity, explicitness of promise, and promising strategy in both comprehension and production tasks. It is hoped that the findings will shed light on Chinese-speaking children‘s understanding of promise.. 1.5 Organization of the Thesis This thesis is organized as follows: Chapter Two reviews the related studies of speech acts and promises, the major components of a promise, and the empirical studies of children‘s understanding of promises. Chapter Three introduces the research design of the present study. The results and discussion of the data are presented in Chapter Four. An overall conclusion is provided in Chapter Five.. 7.

(21) CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW. Before the experiment of the present study was designed, it was necessary to review the related works on speech acts and promises. Thus, in Section 2.1, we discuss Austin‘s speech act theory, and in Section 2.2 we review theoretical issues of promise. The major components required to conduct a successful promise are introduced in Section 2.3. In Section 2.4, we explore empirical studies of children‘s understanding of promises in the case of L1 acquisition. Last but not least, a summary of this chapter is provided in Section 2.5.. 2.1 Austin’s Speech Act Theory Speech act theory was first developed by Austin (1962), who was concerned with whether or not a statement could only be used to state a fact that is either true or false. He found that, under certain language circumstances, utterances can accomplish more than simply ―state a fact‖; they can also ―do an action,‖ such as in language which is used to propose a question, issue a request, make a promise, etc. The speaker does not use these utterances to describe or present anything; instead, by carrying out these utterances, the speaker performs an act or a part of an act, as he states in his book, How to Do Things with Words (1962): ―Once we realize that what we have to study is not the sentence but the issuing of an utterance in a speech situation, there can hardly be any longer a possibility of not seeing that stating is performing an act.‖ (1962:139) Austin‘s research on speech acts began with the speech act of promises, and he noticed that when a speaker says ―I promise…,‖ he has actually accomplished an. 8.

(22) ―action‖ to change the temporal status by just delivering a normal utterance to an addressee, as is the case in other language behavior. Thus, by uttering, for example, ―I promise to take you to the movie tomorrow,‖ a speaker has to take the addressee to the movie tomorrow in order to keep the promise. Such performative utterances that can actually perform an act rather than just describe one are called ―performatives‖ (1962:67). Speech acts can be indicated by a performative verb, but they can also be implicit. In some special situations, speech acts can be expressed without the explicit use of performative verbs. On the contrary, the kinds of utterances that can only be used to state the truth value of a fact—for instance, ―It is raining outside‖—are defined as ―constatives‖ (1962:67). The distinction between performatives and constatives is that constatives are judged by truth value, which is to say that they are either true or false, while the value of performatives is judged by a set of felicity conditions (1962:15) as either felicitous or infelicitous for the performing act. For example, only a clergyman baptizing a baby would be felicitous, while an ordinary person baptizing a baby would be infelicitous. Regarding different dimensions of speech acts, namely, locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary (1962:94–101), Austin‘s (1962) definitions are given below with ―promises‖ as examples for better understanding: Table 2-1. Different Dimensions of Speech Acts Facets of a Speech Act. Definition. Example. Locutionary Act. the act of saying something. the speaker saying ―I promise to take you to the movie tomorrow‖. Illocutionary Act. the performance of an act in saying something. the speaker putting himself under a condition to keep the promise. the performance of an act. the speaker taking the addressee. of saying something. to the movie tomorrow. Perlocutionary Act. 9.

(23) The locutionary act refers to the utterances produced by the speaker and the literal meaning of the utterances. If we remove the illocutionary force in it, the utterances would be similar to the constatives, i.e., making statements that are true or false. However, the illocutionary act is much more complicated and most studies concerning the speech act theory have mainly focused on the illocutionary act, which refers to the real intention of the speaker concealed in the utterances by virtue of the conventional force. It is intriguing to figure out the interaction between the speaker‘s expression of the intention in utterances and the addressee‘s comprehension of the speaker‘s intention. Last but not least, the perlocutionary act refers to the performance of an act done by saying something. The consequences or effects are usually contingent on the circumstances of the utterances and therefore cannot be preconceived (Kurzon, 1998; Levinson, 1983). Austin categorized the illocutionary acts of language into the following five classes (1962:151): Table 2-2. Austin‘s Classification of Illocutionary Acts Classes of Definition Illocutionary Acts. Examples. Verdictives. describe, analyze, interpret. Exercitives. offer a certain state of facts as true convey a motive or inclination for a certain kind of behavior. command, advise, warn. Commissives. commit the speaker to a certain activity. promise, guarantee, swear. Behabitives. reactions to the behavior of other persons. apologize, congratulate, thank. Expositives. offer a certain view or position in an argument. affirm, deny, emphasize. Austin‘s (1962) rough classification of speech acts was criticized for having two major weaknesses (Allwood, 1977; Cerf, 1969; Leech, 1983:176). First, his. 10.

(24) classification clearly suffers from a lack of systematic and scientific coverage of all possible dimensions of transformative speech acts 1 . As a result, the categorical criterion for each class becomes inconsistent. Second, he does not categorize speech acts as different illocutionary acts; thus, he fails to create an infinite system of social interactive patterns which differs for other languages. The performative verbs do not always represent a type of speech act. For example, not every sentence that contains the performative verb ―promise‖ can be counted as a speech act of promise; this is the case in sentences such as ―I promise you that everything will be alright.‖. 2.2 Theoretical Studies of Promises A promise, as seen as a kind of speech act, originated from Austin‘s (1962) understanding of ―saying is doing‖. Searle (1969) further elaborates on it with systematic conditions and rules to govern this special language phenomenon. He develops the speech act theory initiated by Austin towards the real world and into actual language use. Furthermore, Mey (1993) emphasizes the context and societal condition by examining the problems in Searle‘s (1969) conditions and rules of promise. In the following subsections, the above theoretical studies of promises are reviewed.. 2.2.1 Searle (1969) When it comes to successfully performing illocutionary acts, it is necessary to have a set of specific and sufficient conditions and rules as performing guidelines. Searle provides nine conditions which interpret behaviors as institutional concepts; promises are explained below with regard to these conditions (1969:57–61):. 1. Vendler (1972) extends Austin's classification of illocutionary acts by adding two more classes, operatives, and interrogatives. 11.

(25) (1) a. Normal input and output conditions obtain. b. A speaker (S) expresses the proposition that promise (p) in the utterance of T. c. In expressing that p, S predicates a future act A of S. d. The hearer (H) would prefer S's doing A to his not doing A, and S believes H would prefer his doing A to his not doing A. e. It is not obvious to both S and H that S will do A in the normal course of events. f. S intends to do A. g. S intends that the utterance of T will place him under an obligation to do A. h. S intends (i-1) to produce in H the knowledge (K) that the utterance of T is to count as placing S under an obligation to do A. S intends to produce K by means of the recognition of i-1, and he intends i-1 to be recognized in virtue of (by means of) H's knowledge of the meaning of T. i. The semantical rules of the dialect spoken by S and H are such that T is correctly and sincerely uttered if and only if conditions a–h obtain. In the above nine conditions, the first one regulates the objective conditions for verbal communication and the basic conditions to perform a speech act successfully, while the following conditions b–g are the conditions especially needed to be satisfied to conduct a successful promising statement, which is the identifiable condition for the speech act of promise. The last two conditions emphasize the semantic rules to ensure the rational use of language. According to some of these conditions, Searle induces four fulfillment conditions for promise: propositional content condition, preparatory condition, sincerity condition, and essential condition. The detailed explanations and examples of these conditions are discussed in the following subsection. Searle (1969) maintains that the conditions compatibly constitute the illocutionary force, but they might not be the only elements which govern a speech act. Based on these conditions, Searle (1969:63) further establishes the following set of semantic rules to use the illocutionary force indicating devise of promise (Pr) correctly:. 12.

(26) (2) a. Pr is to be uttered only in the context of a sentence T, the utterance of which predicates some future act A of the speaker S. b. Pr is to be uttered only if the hearer H would prefer S‘s doing A to his not doing A, and S believes h would prefer S‘s doing A to his not doing A. c. Pr is to be uttered only if it is not obvious to both S and H that S will do A in the normal course of events. d. Pr is to be uttered only if S intends to do A. e. The utterance of Pr counts as the undertaking of an obligation to do A. The function of the above rules is to include the indicator of an illocutionary force device of promise in real language use. A distinction must be made to clearly demarcate the different types of rules: ―constitutive‖ and ―regulative‖ (1969:33). Rules a–d are regulative and the last one is constitutive. The regulative rules make up the criteria for the speech act of promise, but it is the last constitutive rule that determines which speech act can be considered a ―promise.‖ The fifth rule is superior to the former four rules because it is the key to forming a promise.. 2.2.2 Mey (1993) Mey (1993) also provides his own insight on speech acts with the example of promising. In Mey‘s examination of promises, he begins with a general question: When is a promise actually considered to be a promise? For young children, a promise is valid as long as the performative verb ―promise‖ is uttered (1993:115). This misunderstanding of canonical speech act expressions with specific performative verbs could cause the earlier performative hypothesis2 to be an irrational fallacy. In Searle‘s (1969) opinion, an effective promise is governed by certain rules and conditions. An expression of speech act can be counted as a ―promise‖ only when all rules and conditions have been fulfilled. However, there might be other factors 2. The performative hypothesis proposed by Ross (1970) states that every sentence is associated with an explicit illocutionary act, i.e. it is derived from a deep structure containing a performative verb. For example, the sentence ‗It‘s cold in here‘ is derived from ‗I‘m stating the fact that it‘s cold in here.‘ 13.

(27) involved in addition to the original conditions and rules which Searle (1969) mentioned. Consider this paradox: although the speech act theory has been proposed as a theory of action, as its name suggests, it is intrinsically a theory of propositional content (Bickhard and Campbell, 1992:428). The IFIDs (illocutionary force indicating devices) of speech can only indicate the illocutionary force; they do not actualize it. Attributing to this fact, even though a promiser obligates himself to keep a promise, it is still possible that the promise might not be kept. Therefore, in addition to a speech act, we still need a pragmatic act that ‗lifts the speech act out of the domain of abstract describing into the realm of concrete acting‘ (1993:124). In this pragmatic view of speech acts, the line between regulative and constitutive rules is blurred. In the example of promise, the pragmatic view focuses on both the regulative rules (what is a valid promise?) and constitutive rules (how to use promises in a real contextual situation?). The regulative rules explain how the constitutive rules are shaped, and the constitutive rules decide the practical conduction of regulative rules. Due to the fact that the constitutive elements of a speech act are almost included in that of the regulative, these two rules should be considered inseparable from each other. In order to extend this pragmatic view, in Mey‘s (1985) book Whose Language, he argues for a context-oriented pragmatic perspective of language. We should discuss the usage of speech act of promise in reality instead of in abstract theory. As he states, ‗every promise is a promiser‘s promise, promised to a real-life promisee‘. Consider the following example: (3) There is a policeman at the corner.. (1993:116). Without context, the illocutionary force of warning in (3) may be realized as an assurance, dare, or hint. In this sense, since the nature of speech acts may change with various linguistic uses, we should put more emphasis on the human conditions (users, 14.

(28) promisers, and promisees), contextual conditions (user interaction), and societal conditions (external surrounding factors) when analyzing language usage (1993:126). The idea of societal conditions may easily lead to the notion of cultural differences. Mey brings up the doubt of the existence of a ―universal speech act.‖ People make promises in difference languages in different places around the world every day; however, it is possible that the insight of the speech act of promise varies in different cultures. Take the following sentence as an example: (4) Men du lovede den skulle vœre fœrdig kl. 4. ‗But you promised it would be ready by 4 o‘clock.‘. (1993:117). The Danish performative verb at love ‗to promise‘ does not correspond to the performative verb ―promise‖ in English. Without a promise being officially made, the use of the verb ―promise‖ would be awkward rather than the general verb ―say‖. Also, the expression of ―excuse me‖ in West Africa does not involve any feelings of guilt or direct responsibility on the part of the speaker. In addition, in certain cultures, such as the Ilongot in the Philippines and Micronesians in Pohnpet, the sincerity condition is not a crucial element in the speech act of promise (Rosaldo, 1980, 1982). Therefore, it is evident that context is paramount. Except for the conditions constituted by Searle (1969), an effective promise must be made under certain context and societal conditions. A drunken person or a young child‘s promise may not always be taken seriously. On the other hand, the uttering of ―promise‖ is not definitely necessary for a vital promise in all instances. Thus, the performative verb ―promise‖ cannot always guarantee a real promise. Just as Mey states, ‗It is the context which determines whether an expression counts as a speech act‘ (1993:117).. 15.

(29) 2.2.3 Summary After Austin (1962) proposed the theory of speech acts, Searle (1969) determined the necessary and sufficient conditions and rules which govern successful illocutionary acts in the example of promises. The speech act theory therefore builds a bridge between humans and language. Later, through examining Searle‘s (1969) conditions, Mey (1993) discussed other factors that might affect the performing of illocutionary acts: context and societal condition. There is no doubt that his idea about the speech act theory is inspiring. How to form a speech act appropriately then becomes an intriguing issue. The speech act theory has influenced the studies of linguistics, sociolinguistics, pragmatics, and language acquisition.. 2.3 Major Components of the Speech Act of Promise In the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (5th edition, 2009), a ―promise‖ refers to ―telling someone that you will definitely do or provide something or that something will happen.‖ The insight of the speech act of promise is well-discussed in many studies (Austin, 1962; Searle, 1969; Searle and Vanderveken, 1985; Vendler, 1972). Among these studies, Searle‘s (1969) analysis of promise—which contains the four major components of propositional content condition, preparatory condition, sincerity condition, and essential condition—has been widely adopted by many researchers to examine children‘s understanding of promises as a speech act (Astington, 1988a, 1990; Bernicot and Laval, 1996, 2004; Laval and Bernicot, 1999; Maas, 2008; Maas and Abbeduto, 1998, 2001). Therefore, the definition of promise used in the present study is mainly based on Searle‘s classification.. 16.

(30) 2.3.1 Propositional Content Condition The most fundamental component of a promise is the propositional act delivering from a promiser to a promisee. The propositional act is usually an utterance or a statement which is made by the promiser to accomplish a future action (Searle, 1969). Two intrinsic parts should be included in a propositional act: the indicator of illocutionary force and the indicator of propositional content 3. The illocutionary force indicative devices can be any feature of a language such as word order, intonation contour, performative verbs, etc., as long as it points out what the speaker is performing (Fraser, 1974; Searle, 1969). A promise would be considered defective if either of the two parts is missing, as shown below: (5) I promise I‘ll be there tomorrow. (6) Wo. daying. hui. (Mey, 2001:99). mai liwu. 1SG promise will buy present ‗I promised to bring you presents.‘. huilai. gei ni.. back. for 2SG. In (5), the illocutionary force indicative device refers to the first half of the sentence ‗I promise‘, while the second half ‗I‘ll be there tomorrow‘ is the indicator of propositional content. In (6), the illocutionary force indicative device refers to the first half of the sentence wo daying ‗I promised‘, while the second half hui mai liwu huilai gei ni ‗to bring you presents‘ is the indicator of propositional content. Sometimes, these two parts are combined together and become difficult to distinguish in the surface structure (Searle, 1969), as in (7): (7) a. I promise that I will come. b. I promise to come.. (Searle, 1969: 30). In (7)a, the two parts are ―I promise‖ and ―that I will come‖. In (7)b, the same. 3. These two terms are taken from Searle (1969:30). 17.

(31) illocutionary force indicative device and the indicator of propositional content lies in the deep structure, while in (7)a the boundary of the two parts is in the surface structure. However, both sentences involve the same underlying phrase marker ―I promise + I will come.‖ Similar sentences in Mandarin Chinese are shown in (8): (8) a. Wo. daying. wo. hui bang. 1SG promise 1SG will help ‗I promise that I will help you.‘ b. Wo daying bang. 1SG promise help ‗I promise to help.‘. ni. 2SG. In (8)a, the sentence can be clearly divided into the two parts wo daying ‗I promise‘ and wo hui bang ni ‗that I will help you‘. In (8)b, it is difficult to determine the boundary of the illocutionary force indicative device and the indicator of propositional content, but the same underlying phrase marker ―I promise + I will help you‖ lies in the deep structure as in (8)a. An important element in the illocutionary force indicative device is the so-called performative verb ―promise‖. Without invoking an explicit illocutionary force indicative device, a promise may still be a promise. That is to say, without the performative verb, we can still explicitly express the speech act of a promise (Searle, 1969). Compare (9) to (7): (9) I‘ll do it for you.. (Searle, 1969:68). In (9), with the missing of the performative verb, we still can get the illocutionary force in this speech act. The main function of the performative verb is to present the satisfaction of the essentiality which is the obligation to finish a future action (Fraser, 1974; Searle, 1969). Thus, as long as the meaning of the utterance is clear and the essential condition of a promise is satisfied, the performative verb is no longer needed. 18.

(32) in the speech act of promise. The speech act of a promise in Mandarin Chinese can also be well-interpreted without the performative verb, as in (10): (10) Wo hui dasao fangjian de. 1SG will clean room EVI ‗I will clean up the room.‘ Unlike in (6) and (8), the performative verb of commissives daying ‗promise‘ is not uttered explicitly in (10). However, the illocutionary act is well understood with the speaker guaranteeing a future action; thus cleaning up the room, as uttered in this sentence, will be carried out. In Mandarin Chinese, it seems that the performative verb daying ‗promise‘ is not commonly used. In Wang‘s (2009) study, the young participants showed no sensitivities between the forms with or without the performative verb. To further prove this point, we had designed a questionnaire survey to investigate Chinese speaker‘s usage of the performative verb daying ‗promise.‘ In the result, we found that among the 50 adult Chinese speakers, none of them had employed the performative verb daying ‗promise‘ to make a promise. To make a promise, there are many effective ways, as long as the two elements mentioned above—the indicator of illocutionary force and the indicator of propositional content—are expressed either explicitly or implicitly. Sometimes, the content of the promise can be implied in the context, and the context can determine if a specific expression counts as a promise (Mey, 2001; Searle, 1969). Therefore, a simple affirmative expression, such as ―OK‖ or ―Sure‖, can be recognized as a promise, as in (11): (11) A: Shall we meet at the theater at 7? B: OK! In (11), A will consider B as having made a promise since the content of the promise. 19.

(33) ―to meet at the theater at 7‖ is shown in the context. Hence, B has to take responsibility if B does not show up at the theater at 7 o‘clock. In Mandarin Chinese, the basic form of making a promise is simply wo daying ni ‗I promise you.‘ The subject, which is usually first person wo ‗I‘, and the object, ni ‗you‘, will not be omitted (Chang, 2007; Dong, 2010). Following the basic form, an explanation of the concrete content of the commitment will be elaborated. Therefore, a common strategy of making a promise will be the basic form adding another complete sentence: Wo daying ni + S ‗I promise you + S‘ (Dong, 2010). Nevertheless, this common form of making a promise is usually used in written language such as a fiction or a script.. 2.3.2 Preparatory Condition The preparatory condition can refer to two parts. First, the speaker has to believe that doing this future act is in the hearer‘s best interest (Searle, 1969). It should be obvious that the content of the promise is mainly beneficial for the promisee, not the promiser, otherwise the promise would be defective. Also, if the promiser misinterprets the promisee‘s preference, the promise would be defective. Therefore, both the promisee‘s preference and the promiser‘s awareness of the preference are necessary. This feature of a promise is the most crucial distinction between promises and threats. Consider Searle‘s example saying to a lazy student: (12) If you don‘t hand in your paper on time I promise you I will give you a failing grade in the course. (Searle, 1969:58) It is rather obvious that (12) is more of a warning than a promise, since ―getting a failing grade‖ is never a student‘s desire. As a matter of fact, it is a structure of conditional promise in which one changes another person‘s behavior in order to reach. 20.

(34) one‘s own goals. This usage of promise can be interpreted as a threat. In Mandarin Chinese, the corresponding situation can be found as well. Consider the following examples of a mother talking to a child: (13) a. Wo daying mai wanju gei ni. 1SG promise buy toy for 2SG ‗I promise to buy toys for you.‘ b. Wo baozheng ni meiyou dianxin 1SG guarantee 2SG no dessert ‗I promise that you won‘t get any dessert.. chi. eat. When comparing (13)a and (13)b, it is readily apparent that ―having toys‖ is a more highly sought after choice than ―losing dessert‖ for the addressee. Thus, (13)a is considered a promise without any doubt because the speaker knows the addressee wants some toys, and getting toys is preferred by the addressee. As for (13)b, although it contains the explicit expressing commissive performative verb like baozheng ‗guarantee‘ in the illocutionary force indicative device, this speech act is closer to a threat than a promise, since the content of the promise is obviously not desired by the addressee. It is a pledge to do something to the addressee rather than for the addressee. In (12) and (13), we can see that it is sometimes not possible to judge the category of a speech act according to the performative verb. The presence of a performative verb does not guarantee that an utterance is the speech act of a promise. Consider another apparent counter-example in both English and Mandarin Chinese: (14) A: You stole that money, didn‘t you? B: No I didn‘t, I promise you I didn‘t.. 21. (Searle, 1969:58–59).

(35) (15) A: Ni jintian shuaya le ma? 2SG today brush teeth PF PT ‗Did you brush your teeth today?‘ B: Wo baozheng wo shua 1SG guarantee 1SG brush ‗I promise that I did.‘. le. PF. In (14) and (15), it is obvious that the indicators of propositional content are not a future action desired to be done by the addressee. Rather, they are statements. The use of the word ―promise‖ does not function as a performative verb in the speech act of promise, but as an expression which emphasizes the denial. The second meaning of the preparatory condition is that the promise content is not a usual or normal event for the promiser, for it would be meaningless to make a promise about something which is obviously already being performed, or about to be performed, by the speaker. What is promised should be something preferred by the addressee so that the speaker has to do it on purpose, especially for the sake of the addressee. It is definitely not daily routines like eating and sleeping, as in (16): (16) I promise the sun will rise tomorrow.. (Mey, 2001:99). One cannot promise a definite fact that will happen in the future as in (16). That is to say, the speech act of promise implies both the promiser and the promisee are aware of the truth that the promise content is something rarely done by the promise, as shown below: (17) I promise to cook for you tomorrow. (18) Wo baozheng jintian zaodian huijia. 1SG promise today early go home ‗I promise to go home early today.‘ In (17), the promise entails that the promiser does not usually cook; therefore,. 22.

(36) cooking will be a future action specially done for the promisee. In (18), we can assume that the speaker usually goes home late every night. Because the family wishes the speaker to be home early today and the speaker knows it, this is a promise. S/he breaks the routine especially to accomplish the family‘s need.. 2.3.3 Sincerity Condition One of the important components of the speech act of promise is that the speaker has to be sincere (Searle, 1969). Whether the promiser is sincere or not is an important criterion to judge a speech act as the commisive speech act; that is, the promiser must utter the propositional act honestly. To fulfill this condition, the promiser has to recognize three factors. First, the promiser has to promise with intention to do the future act for the promisee. While performing the propositional act, the promiser has to be sincerely ready to accomplish the future action to reach the promisee‘s best interest. Second, the promiser has to deliver this intention to the promisee in his utterance. Last but not least, the promiser must imply that he has the ability to complete the action. The promiser has to be capable of doing the future action and make the promisee believe that he has the controllability of the promise content. Consider the following examples in English and Mandarin Chinese: (19) I promise that I‘ll kill him for you. (20) Wo baozheng zhai yi ke xingxing huilai 1SG promise get one CLF star back ‗I promise to get one star for you.‘. gei ni. for 2SG. If the promise content is beyond the promiser‘s controllability, it is highly predictable that the essential condition might not be satisfied. If the promiser does not reach the sincerity condition, he would create a false belief for the promisee. A false belief of a promise would probably lead to an 23.

(37) insincere promise, which is still a promise according to Searle (1969:62), or a lie if the promisee senses the insincerity of the promiser, as illustrated below: (21) a. I promise to go to movies with him. b. I promise to go to movies with him (but I don‘t want to go). (22) a. Wo 1SG. daying mingtian promise tomorrow. bang help. ni daixiaohai. 2SG babysit. ‗I promise to help you babysit tomorrow.‘ b. Wo daying mingtian bang ni daixiaohai 1SG promise tomorrow help 2SG babysit xiang guangjie.) want go shopping. (keshi but. wo 1SG. ‗I promise to help you babysit tomorrow (but I want to go shopping.)‘ If the promisee does not recognize the insincerity of the promiser and the future action is accomplished, the insincere promise may still remain as an effective promise as in (21)a and (22)a. However, the promiser‘s intention cannot always clearly be obtained simply based on the propositional act uttered. Compare b to a in (21) and (22); it is obvious that the promiser has lost the sincerity to keep a promise, thus making it an insincere promise. There is a slight possibility that the promisee may never know if the promiser is truly sincere.. 2.3.4 Essential Condition The last and the most important condition for the speech act of promise is the essential condition (Searle, 1969), also known as obligation condition (Maas and Abbeduto, 2001). After promising to perform a future action, the promiser must place himself under an obligation to finish that future action (Searle, 1969). Thus, the fulfillment of the commitment becomes the decisive factor for the speech act of promise to be distinguished from other illocutionary acts. Sometimes, in (21)b and (22)b, it is an effective promise from the promisee‘s point of view if there is a force to 24.

(38) make the promiser finish the action. The promisee may not be certain if the sincerity condition is fulfilled but he will know if the essential condition is fulfilled. When the promiser makes a promise and undertakes an obligation for a future action, it entails that the promiser must also take responsibility for the accomplishment of that action at the same time. If the promiser does not achieve the obligation or cannot afford to finish the future action, the promise will be defective and the promiser has to be blamed for the broken promise, as in (23): (23) I promise to take you to the park tomorrow. If the promiser ―I‖ does not take the promisee ―you‖ to the park the day after today, this promise will be considered as a defective promise because the essential condition is not satisfied. Consider the same situation in Chinese: (24) Wo daying yao bang ni xie 1SG promise to help 2SG write ‗I promise to help you with your homework.‘. gongke. homework. Once expressing the utterance, the speaker wo ‗I‘ in (24) has put himself under the obligation of finishing the future action of bang ni xie gongke ‗to help you with your homework.‘ Nevertheless, even if the promiser is sincerely intent on keeping the promise, there is still a possibility that the promise might not be carried out (Maas and Abbeduto, 2001). Consider the following examples which could keep the promiser from the obligation to keep the promise in (25) and (26): (25) a. After Nevin ate lunch, he felt so sick that he just had to lie down. Nevin didn‘t come back to the park. (Maas and Abbueduto, 2001:521) b. Sally never came back to play with her classmate because her mother asked her to help in the kitchen. c. Jenny can‘t go shopping with Samantha because she hasn‘t finished her homework.. 25.

(39) (26) a. …keshi wo duzi hao tong. but 1SG stomach very hurt ‗…but I have a stomachache.‘ b. …keshi wo mama jiao wo qu mai dongxi. but 1SG mother ask 1SG go buy something ‗…but my mom asked me to buy something for her.‘ c. …keshi woziji de gongke hai mei xie. but myself GEN homework still not write ‗…but I haven‘t written my own homework yet.‘ In (25)a and (26)a, an unforeseen event (e.g. illness) may stop the promiser from accomplishing the future action. In (25)b and (26)b, the involvement of an authority figure (e.g. an elder asking the promiser to help with other tasks) may also be a potential obstacle to keep the promiser from fulfilling the promise. Last but not least, it seems as if there is another kind of obstacle falling in between the two, i.e. a dilemma. When the promiser is obligated to do something perceived to be very important, s/he may hesitate between carrying out the obligation or the promise, as in (25)c and (26)c.. 2.3.5 Summary In this section, we have discussed the four major components of the speech act of a promise and the insight of them proposed by Searle (1969). In a successful and effective promise, all of the four conditions must be fulfilled. The promiser needs to sincerely offer the utterance of the promise. Also, the promised content should be beneficial to the promisee. Most importantly, the promiser is obligated to complete the promise of carrying out the future action. Although, it is controversial to judge if an insincere promise is still a promise, Searle (1969) believes so, as he states, ‗a promise involves an expression of intention, whether sincere or insincere‘ (1969:62). After discussing the vital components in the speech act of promise, we review. 26.

(40) some previous empirical studies on young children‘s understanding of promise in the following section.. 2.4 Previous Empirical Studies of Children’s Understanding of Promises In this section, three previous empirical studies of children‘s understanding of promises are reviewed. In the literature, little research has been done to examine children‘s concepts of promise. Chomsky (1959) found that 5-year-old children were capable of using the performative verb ―promise‖ properly in sentence structure. They acquired the concept of promise to finish doing what they were asked to do, but they could not accurately define the word ―promise‖ before the age of nine (Mant and Perner, 1988). The developmental progress of children‘s understanding of promise is intriguing. What is assured is that children‘s pragmatic and metapragmatic concept of promise evolved with age (Astington, 1988a; Bernicot and Laval, 1996; Liu and Fang, 2003). Astington (1988a) is probably the first study that focuses on children‘s understanding of promise. Other studies continued to explore this issue and their results further confirm Astington's findings (Maas, 2008; Maas and Abbeduto, 2001). Wang (2009) reports a pioneer study of promise on Chinese-speaking children. These studies are reviewed in the following subsections.. 2.4.1 Astington (1988a) Astington (1988a) provided a preliminary investigation of children‘s understanding of the speech act of promise. Due to the fact that the performative verb ―promise‖ is frequently used in the colloquial phrase ―I promise‖ without the speech act of promise involved, Astington aimed to examine if children‘s mental concept of promise would be affected by the performative verb. In her study, she designed six stories in which one of the speakers saying ―I promise‖ and had the subjects judge 27.

(41) what kind of speech acts were described as a promise. Among the six stories, only two of them were a promise for a future action, while the others were predictions and assertions. The examples are as follows: Table 2-3. Different Meanings Implied in the Performative Verb ―Promise‖ Types of Speech Act. Examples. Promise. I will take you (to swimming pool) next week, I promise.. Prediction. Yes, you will (be better), I promise.. Assertion. Well, I did (take out the garbage) today, I promise. (Astington, 1988a:161). In addition to the different usages of the performative verb ―promise,‖ Astington pointed out the outcome of the promise action as a factor. There were three conditions for each experimental story: outcome unknown, promise fulfilled, and promise unfulfilled. She considered if the outcome of a promise would be a factor to affect children‘s concept of promising, thus affecting children‘s attribute for the responsibility of a promise. One hundred and seventy subjects were involved in this study; 116 of the subjects were children aged 5 to 13, which were further broken down into 96 subjects of 5-, 7-, 9-, and 11-year-olds (24 in each group) and 20 subjects of 13-year-olds, and 54 college students as the control group. The study, which included a wide age range of children and large number of subjects, found a clear pattern of acquiring the concept of promise among children with regard to age. As Astington stated, 19 percent of the subjects had ―a variety of first languages.‖ However, she did not explain clearly if Chinese was one of the first languages. As Searle proposed in 1969, the performative verb is not a necessary element of a promise. That is, without the verb ―promise,‖ a promise is still a speech act that the promiser has the obligation to conduct the future outcome. However, in Chinese, whether or not a promise is still considered a promise without the performative verb daying or baozheng ‗promise‘ 28.

(42) still needs to be examined further. Astington‘s result can be divided into two parts: subjects‘ judgments about promising and subjects‘ judgments about promisers‘ responsibility. First, in the promise judgment, the 5-year-olds failed to distinguish a promise from a predication or an assertion. The children between 7 and 9 seemed to have a fragile concept about promising, but they often incorrectly referred ―an unfulfilled promise‖ to ―not a promise.‖ However, the adults‘ responses were consistent with Searle‘s (1969) definition of the speech act of promising. Most adults could make the correct judgment which the speaker had promised, even if the promise was unfulfilled. Second, the 7- and 9-year-olds were aware that promisers should be responsible for their intentionally broken promises. This result was in accordance with Searle‘s essential condition of promising that a promise contains the promiser‘s obligation to finish a future action (Searle, 1969). To sum up, in Astington‘s study, the 5-year-old children failed to distinguish a promise from a predication or an assertion, and the children between 7 and 9 seemed to possess a fragile understanding of what a promise is, and they were aware that promisers should be responsible for intentionally broken promises.. 2.4.2 Maas and Abbeduto (2001) Maas and Abbeduto (2001) adopted Astington‘s (1988a) framework on the study of children‘s understanding of promises, but their research focused instead on broken promises. According to Searle (1969), a promise is still a promise even if the promiser fails to fulfill the commitment. Therefore, in Maas and Abbeduto‘s study, they intended to examine if different reasons for the promiser to break the promise would affect children‘s concepts of promise. In addition to age, children‘s understanding of promising can be influenced by other factors. For example, different 29.

(43) obstacles of a broken promise may intervene with children‘s judgment on a promise. Since Astington‘s (1988a) research showed that children‘s understanding of promise emerge at the age of 7 to 9, Maas and Abbeduto (2001) focused on this age of children and further examined their understanding of promise. Thirty two children were asked to participate in this study, 16 children in each age group. They also recruited adult subjects as control group. Their procedure was similar to Astington‘s study. The major differences were the experimental materials. Astington focused on the different meanings of the performative verb ―promise‖ and the types of outcome, while Maas and Abbeduto concentrated on two types of obstacles for broken promises: 1) the involvement of an authority figure (e.g. an elder asking the promiser to help with other tasks), and 2) an unforeseen event (e.g. illness). The results showed there was a clear developmental tendency from the 7-year-olds to the 9-year-olds and adults. Consistent with Astington‘s findings, they found the 7-year-olds failed to recognize an unfulfilled promise as promise, who still incorrectly considered the outcome was the most essential part of a promise. Once the outcome of the promise was not accomplished, their standard criterion for a promise would not match, and they would consider the promise to not be a promise. Their results confirmed Astington's findings that children could barely recognize an unfulfilled promise as in fact being a promise. In addition, young children often varied their judgment according to the cause of the broken promise. The 9-year-old children did not recognize an unfulfilled promise as an effective promise if the promiser had no reason for failing to accomplish the obligation of the promise. Furthermore, the young children at the age of seven held a fragile understanding of Searle‘s sincerity condition of promise. They realized an insincere promise was not an effective promise; that is, the promiser‘s intention was considered important in 30.

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