Pragmatic Profiling in Malayalam Speaking Typical Children’s

Abstract

Pragmatic language refers to the appropriate use of language in social contexts. It includes the ability to initiate conversations, maintain topics, interpret social cues, use gestures appropriately and respond effectively during communication. The present study aimed to profile pragmatic skills in Malayalam speaking typical children aged 4 -11 years. A total of thirty-two children participated in the study. Pragmatic abilities were assessed through structured tasks including general conversation, picture description and question answering. The pragmatic skills analysed were eye contact, smiling, gaze exchange, requesting, labeling, answering questions, negation, turn-taking, conversational repair, topic initiation, topic maintenance, comment/feedback, and adding information. The results revealed that typically developing children demonstrated good pragmatic performance across all tasks, with higher performance observed in picture description and question-answering tasks. The findings provide important baseline data on pragmatic development in Malayalam-speaking children and can serve as a useful reference for clinical evaluation and intervention.