Effective communication requires pragmatic competence. Such competence involves the correct use of conversational norms and extends beyond the literal meanings of words and sentences. This paper examined the pragmatic competence of elementary school children who spoke Persian as their native language. It investigated three types of speech acts (Thanking, Requesting, and Apologizing) represented in young children’s performance (N=10) by answering to a discourse completion test (DCT) questionnaire. Qualitative analysis of the data shows that children like adults use different strategies of politeness in the form of both Face Enhancing Act (FEA) and Face Threatening Act (FTA).Positive direction strategies were adopted in the FEAs for thanking and apologizing, whilst negative direction strategies were embraced in FTAs for requesting. It was also shown that in some instances, children’s linguistic and pragmatic ability is immature. It was concluded that Persian young children like adults follow universal rules regarding the acquisition of pragmatic features, irrespective of the cultural or environmental contexts in which they embark on pragmatic rules. Implications of the study are also presented.

中文翻译：

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波斯语幼儿的语用能力：以感谢，要求和道歉为例

有效的沟通需要务实的能力。这种能力涉及正确使用会话规范，并且超出了单词和句子的字面含义。本文研究了以波斯语为母语的小学生的语用能力。通过回答话语完成测试（DCT）调查问卷，研究了三种表现在幼儿表演（N = 10）中的言语行为（感谢，请求和道歉）。对数据的定性分析表明，像成年人这样的儿童会通过面部增强法（FEA）和面部威胁法（FTA）的形式使用不同的礼貌策略.FEA中采用了积极的指导策略来表示感谢和道歉，而消极的指导则是负面的FTA中包含了请求策略。还表明，在某些情况下，儿童的语言和实用能力不成熟。得出的结论是，波斯人像成年人一样，遵循关于习得功能的普遍规则，而与他们遵循实用规则的文化或环境无关。还提出了研究的意义。