Social class and development of the metapragmatic conscience of the children

Abstract

An issue to be considered is whether or not some sociocultural differences off speakers also influence other abilitites, such as metapragmatic awareness, which allows the individual to consciously control the relation between the linguistic oral message and the extralinguistic information when language is used (Gombert, 1992). Thanks to this ability, a person can have full mastery of his/her linguistic resources for a more successful oral communication. With the purpose of looking at a possible social class-metapragmatic conscience interaction, the CMP instrument (Crespo, Alfaro and Pérez, 2008), which measures such a variable, has been applied to 100 childrens. Findings show that state school children reach 12% lower than those in private schools, whereas the fifth-graders narrow the gap with a score which is 1,7% lower than their private school peers. These results highlight the importance of schooling in the development of the metapragmatic conscience.