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The acquisition of social deixis: children's usages of ‘kin’ terms in Maharashtra, India*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Anthony T. Carter
Anthony T. Carter
Affiliation:
University of Rochester
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Abstract

In relatively unstructured interviews, Maratha and Brahmin children in Maharashtra, India, are asked to identify and to speak about household members, relatives, friends, and neighbours. It is argued that characteristic features of the usages and definitions of so-called ‘kin’ terms of young children as compared to those of adults reflect not only an incomplete grasp of the adult system of kinship reference, but also a quite accurate understanding of the deictic system of address in which kinship per se plays at most a peripheral role. It is further argued that, following Silverstein and Levinson, pragmatic rules of use play a major role in this address system and that, pace Piaget and others, these rules are acquired by a form of observational learning which requires that children be able to take another's point of view.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , February 1984 , pp. 179 - 201
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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