Does cultural context matter? Comparison of Finnish and Italian children’s social-pragmatic comprehension

Introduction While social-pragmatic comprehension has been studied from a number of perspectives, there are only a few studies that focus on cultural factors and their effect on the development of pragmatic processing skills. Previous studies have suggested that various communicative features and different communicative styles may be detected in individuals coming from different contextual backgrounds, even within Europe itself. Methods In this light, the present study compared the performance of 150 Finnish and 150 Italian children matched for age and gender (age range 4–8 years) on the Pragma Test, a tool that measures social-pragmatic comprehension using structured protocols. Results Results showed a similar developmental trend in pragmatic comprehension among the two groups, while data suggest the Finnish children performed slightly better across all the age groups, even if at age four and five the difference was less pronounced. A difference in performance emerged at age six and persisted until age eight. Italian and Finnish children performed similarly on questions assessing children’s recognition of feelings in context. Differences were noted in questions on contextual processing not involving theory of mind and on understanding the relevant use of language. Finnish children slightly outperformed Italian children in explaining their correct answers. Discussion This study enhances our understanding of the development of pragmatic comprehension from a cross-cultural perspective. It highlights universal underpinnings in pragmatic processing as well as some cultural influences that bear upon contextual processing.