Communicative intentionality: theories and implications for infant social cognition

This paper explores babies' communicative intentionality and the acquisition of this ability in the first year of life. It presents a theoretical discussion of this theme, looking at research that points to the social-communicative dimension of language and its relevance to the child's social cognition, as well as the adult's role in developing this ability. It also emphasizes the narrow relationship between triadic contexts and communicative intention, the different points of view on the evolutional moments in which this ability emerges and the nuances of the investigation into the infant's acts of communication, mainly when such acts incorporate the intentional element.

Social cognition; Intention; Language; Mother-child relations