Showing papers on "Directive published in 1977"

Wait for Me, Roller Skate!

Abstract: Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the choice of directives as the focus for an analysis of children's speech acts that is based on several advantages. It presents some adult directives to provide a framework for the discussion of the child's abilities. The major finding of the adult research was that there were relatively consistent differences in the type of directive used, as a function of the social features of the speech situation. The most systematic data were obtained in white collar, task-oriented settings such as offices, laboratories, and hospitals. The chapter presents the evidence on directives at the earliest stages of communication, from the work of Bates, Carter, Dore, and Halliday, all of which mention the onset of verbal directives. Adults realize directive intents through speech acts that take different syntactic forms. So the major differences between adults and young children is not diversity of structure, not diversity of social features but systematic, regular, unmarked requests, which do not refer to what the speaker wants. Wide use of tactful deviousness is a late accomplishment.

Pragmatics of Directive Choice Among Children

Abstract: Publisher Summary This chapter discusses pragmatics of directives choice among children. In English, and probably in most languages, directives may take a number of forms ranging from simple commands boldly stated to hints that require inference based on shared knowledge for their proper identification as directives. On the basis of the directives exhibited in the role-play data, and in their spontaneous speech, one can say that the children in our sample have acquired all of the conventional forms that directives may take in American English. The communicative competence of the children in regard to the use of directives then includes at least two of the functional aspects of directive use: the identification and comprehension as directives of utterances that have some other surface form; and the selection of particular directive forms on the basis of situational appropriateness. From the perspective of the addressee, there are interpretive problems involved in the use of the imperative by a peer. These problems arise from the status meaning that adheres to the imperative, and are accentuated by the importance of imperatives in status manipulation ploys.

Current Proposals for Marshalling Data on and Disclosure by Multinationals

Abstract: It is a truism that the development of effective legislation national or international regulating conduct of persons subject to national jurisdiction is impossible until the legislator has a full grasp of the nature of the conduct in question and its social effects. Current efforts to construct an international code of conduct for multinational enterprises exemplify the point: there is hardly a consensus much less data on the nature of the transnational phenomenon or its habits although there is considerable rhetoric. Accordingly, the United Nations Commission on Transnational Corporations in the Report on its Second Session, March 1-12, 1976, l listed as the second area for the focus of the program of work, after formulation of a code of conduct, "establishment of a comprehensive information system."2 The Commission then issued a directive to its technical organ, the Information and Research Centre on Transnational Corporations, as to its target in the establishment of such an information system. This directive is most interesting in that it acknowledges not only the absence of data, but the constraints on the data gathering process, and even the paucity of information concerning those constraints. The constraints can be classed into two major types: positive and intellectual. As stated in the Commission's Report, the positive constraints are, "existing national legislation and regulations" and the "requirements of business confidentiality."3 What the Commission meant, of course, by "existing