Abstract:

Having the knowledge of a language is not limited to acquire the phonology, morphology and syntax of that language. Being a competent language user, children must acquire how to use the grammars of a language to communicate appropriately in a great variety of communicative situations. It means that language acquisition does not only include linguistic competence, at the same time, it includes pragmatic competence (Ya-ting, 2008). Thus pragmatic competence has an important place in the children’s language acquisition process. This paper is related to children’s pragmatic development which brings together linguistic pragmatics and child development. Turkish children’s language in play was analysed and the results were presented, focusing on the use of politeness phenomena. The results of the study are compared with the previous ones made in different languages. By contrast with the results of these studies, the present study found no significant differences in boys’ and girls’ use of mitigation. The girls and the boys often used an assertive, unmitigated style at the same level in their play, however, in other studies; girls appear to be politer than boys when they play. This article re-emphasized the need for language and gender research on children to be thoroughly contextualized and the importance of considering the socio-cultural context in research on children’s language. Indeed, the results are used to express the link between children's acquisition of pragmatic competence and crucial social, cultural and educational implications.

Keywords: