Abstract Indirect communication occurs when a speaker does not explicitly say what s/he means but rather only hints at it and the recipient has to make inferences to uncover the speaker’s actual intentions. Even though the majority of the world’s population is bi- or multilingual, the comprehension of indirect communication has so far mainly been tested in monolingual children. This is surprising given some recent evidence indicating advantages for bilingual children in various communicative competences. In the present study, monolingual and bilingual 3-year-old children (n = 142) interacted with a speaker who communicated her preferences for certain actions indirectly (e.g., when offered cereals or toast for breakfast, saying, “I do have jam” which can be understood as a request for the toast). To uncover the speaker’s intended object, children needed to draw a relevance inference in order to connect what was said with the question under discussion. The results showed that monolingual and bilingual children did not differ in their understanding of the speaker’s indirectly communicated intentions and that the exposure to more than one language did not influence children’s ability to draw relevance inferences. Thus, our study replicates earlier findings on monolingual children’s comprehension of indirect communication, that is, the 3-year-old children in the present study performed above-chance level with relevance inferences. Moreover, our study adds to the current debate about bilingual children’s communicative competences by showing that the existence and amount of further language input does not affect the interpretation of indirect meanings. Thus, seeking relevance seems to be a quite general disposition from early on in ontogeny.

中文翻译：

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理解单语和双语儿童的口头间接交流

摘要 当说话者没有明确说出他/她的意思而只是暗示它并且接收者必须做出推断以揭示说话者的实际意图时，就会发生间接交流。尽管世界上的大多数人口是双语或多语的，但迄今为止，对间接交流的理解主要是在单语儿童中进行的。鉴于最近的一些证据表明双语儿童在各种交际能力方面的优势，这是令人惊讶的。在本研究中，单语和双语 3 岁儿童（n = 142）与说话者互动，说话者间接传达了她对某些行为的偏好（例如，早餐时提供谷物或吐司，说“我有果酱”可以理解为对祝酒的请求）。为了揭开说话者的意图，儿童需要做出相关推断，以便将所说的内容与正在讨论的问题联系起来。结果表明，单语和双语儿童对说话者间接交流意图的理解没有差异，接触多于一种语言不会影响儿童进行相关推理的能力。因此，我们的研究复制了早期关于单语儿童对间接交流的理解的发现，即本研究中的 3 岁儿童在相关性推断方面的表现高于机会水平。此外，我们的研究表明，进一步语言输入的存在和数量不会影响间接含义的解释，从而增加了当前关于双语儿童交际能力的争论。因此，