Abstract
Twenty-one children between the ages of 4∶6 and 5∶2 years made a speaker doll address other dolls that represented an adult, a peer, and a younger listener in command and request situations. Analyses of the politeness of the elicited directives revealed that the effect of the listener's age was greatest in the command situations,with the adult listener receiving the politest directives, followed by the peer and the younger child, respectively. The listener age effect diminished in the request situations, where the child had to ask a favor of the listener. In these situations, the children were very polite to all three listeners. The results are discussed in terms of status relationships between the speaker and the listener.
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This article is taken from a doctoral dissertation completed at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, under the direction of D. K. Vetter.
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James, S.L. Effect of listener age and situation on the politeness of children's directives. J Psycholinguist Res 7, 307–317 (1978). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01068112
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01068112