Explorations in the Development of Young Children's Speech Act of Threatening in Mandarin Chinese: Threatening, Pragmatics, Speech Act

The purpose of this study was to explore Taiwanese children's production and perception of the speech act of threatening. Childrens linguistic forms of uttering threats, how they produce and perceive threats in different ages were investigated. Moreover, four selected cartoon settings (assertion, insult, refusal and threat) that may provoke children to issue a threat were examined. Children's understanding of the appropriateness of uttering threats in the selected settings was further investigated. Gender was also taken into consideration. Children's social background and social status were not taken into account. A total of 347 participants, including 144 preschool children (1st level classes: 42, 2nd level classes: 53 and 3rd level classes: 49) and 203 elementary school children (1st grade: 65, 2nd grade: 69 and 3rd grade: 69), were interviewed.