Question

Ariel approaches another group of children who are talking about the baseball game. She stands very close to the children, gets close to their faces, and says, "I have two cats at my house." The children acknowledge her, back away a bit, and continue the conversation about the ballgame. Ariel interrupts again, moves closer to the children, and says, "My Siamese cat and my Persian cat belong to me, not my brother." In what component of language does Ariel most likely have a deficit?A. SyntaxB. MorphologyC. PragmaticsD. Semantics

Answer 1

c) Pragmatics

Step-by-step explanation:

The pragmatic component of language refers to the social skills that we use in our interactions with others. In other words, it includes what we say, how say it and the body language we use when we say it. This component allows us to act "appropriately" in a social situation.

In this example Ariel approaches another group of children talking about baseball and she gets close to their faces and mentions her cats. The kids back away and continue talking about the baseball game, Ariel moves closer again and mentions another fact about her cats.

In this scenario, Ariel is lacking the social skills to approach the other group of kids (she shouldn't interrupt, she shouldn't get that close to them, she shouldn't change topics). By standing very close to them this is also part of her body language. Thus, we can see that she is lacking the basic components that would allow her to act "appropriately" in this social situation.

Thus, she most likely has a deficit in Pragmatics.