Abstract
Abstract
Child pragmatic development involves children's acquisition of communicative competences, that is, learning how to use language, in order to understand and communicate with others appropriately in an expanding range of social contexts. The aim of this entry is to describe the main research perspectives on child pragmatic development, introduce the areas and methods of their inquiry, and review their findings. The entry discusses research on children's speech acts, conversational skills, politeness and social parameters of language use, and extended discourse genres such as narratives, explanations, arguments, and conflict talk.