The development of indirectness

The purpose of the study is to investigate a conceptual framework on the acquisition of directive formulations. Central to this framework is that both context and utterance bear meaning. These complement one another and are processed simultaneously.
More specifically, the study focuses on the acquisition of directive formulations. On the basis of our framework we propose a circular model for the development of indirectness. We hypothesize that children start their development with linguistically direct as well as indirect formulations. In a later phase their repertoire includes embedded and linguistically and situationally indirect formulations.