Introduction

The acquisition of argument structure and transitivity has been a major area of research in first language acquisition. Argument structure is generally analyzed in terms of the semantic and syntactic relations that hold between a verb and its core arguments at the lexical and clausal levels. At the lexical level, a transitive verb can be defined empirically as one that is usually used with two core arguments, prototypically an agent acting upon a patient. At the clausal level, the grammar of transitivity encompasses the devices (e.g. word order, casemarking and verbal affixes) that are involved in treating the two core arguments as belonging to particular grammatical categories, such as subject and object. While most linguistic analyses of argument structure and transitivity have focused on the levels of lexicon and clause, my work on the acquisition of Korean is based on the assumption that a full understanding of argument structure requires consideration of an additional level, namely, discourse.

The discourse-functional approach that I have pursued draws upon almost three decades of functionally and typologically oriented research on grammar that uses discourse data – transcriptions of audio- or video-taped interactions of language use – as the basis for analyzing grammatical systems and formulating grammatical theory (e.g. Chafe, 1994; Du Bois, 1987, Givón, 1979). The most basic assumption of this approach is that the structure of grammars is shaped by the communicative pressures and cognitive limitations involved in language use.

One of the most striking meeting places of language and culture can be found in communicative style. The notion of communicative style has been defined by Barnlund (1975) to include the topics people discuss, their favorite forms of interaction, the depth of involvement sought, the extent to which they rely upon the same channels for conveying information, and the extent to which they are tuned to the same level of meaning, such as factual versus emotional content. Obviously, communicative style is one aspect of “communicative competence,” relating, in particular, to the “rules for use” that govern speakers' production and interpretation of language appropriately in context (Hymes 1972). Communicative style, which I will define loosely here as the way language is used and understood in a particular culture, both reflects and reinforces fundamental cultural beliefs about the way people are and the nature of interpersonal communication. As Scollon (1982) has argued, children's acquisition of culture-specific patterns of communication is an extremely important part of their socialization, since such patterns serve as one of the primary sources of information on cultural values concerning social relationships and interaction. Thus acquisition of communicative style plays a part in the development of children's social cognition, thereby helping to shape their world view (Whorf 1956) or “reality set” (Scollon & Scollon 1981).

Japanese communicative style

It is widely recognized that the communicative style of the Japanese is intuitive and indirect, especially compared with that of Americans.