Child at the crossroads of two subcultures: development of discourse practices in children

Abstract

The paper is devoted to an essential problem which still lacks comprehensive studies, i.e. psycholinguistic and sociocultural aspects of a discourse development. Personal and institutional discourses, as the key skills of children, are discussed from the perspective of a systematic approach, in a context of the activity theory, psychology of communication, and the theory of speech acts. As a sociocultural phenomenon, oral discourse in children is treated in a framework of the theory of ‘culture of the childhood’. Also, a structural and component analysis of children dialogue is suggested. The paper concludes that in order to understand the mechanisms of development of discourse and its genres, as well as the strategies used at different stages of development, sociocultural and anthropological approaches seem to be necessary, additionally to psychological and linguistic ones. The models should be ecologically valid for the childhood nature; interdisciplinary approach is the most promising way to solve these problems.