Awareness of Features and Functions of Language

This chapter’s chief concern is with children’s concepts of linguistic features and the child’s understanding of the functions of language. The chapter begins with a review of research on phonemic awareness that has been conducted in several different languages by various authors. The extremely interesting array of research strategies, however, leaves us still uncertain about the precise nature of the roots of phonemic concepts. Turning to functional concepts, evidence will be presented that preschool children are implicitly aware of the communicative function of language. This may be inferred from their behavior that is adjusted to the needs of the listener. Moreover, as a study on metacommunicative behavior shows, preschool children are able to make judgments and verbal statements about inappropriate communication behavior. Finally, some considerations about methods of assessing aspects of language awareness will be presented and some pedagogical implications regarding different stages of the development of metalinguistic knowledge will be outlined.