Abstract

This study is an attempt to explore types of questions produced by Korean preschoolers. Corpora from three children in The Child Language Data Exchange System (CHILDES-MacWhinney, 2000) were analyzed to understand the types of questions asked by 2.5- to 3-year-old children and the answers given by adults. Questions were divided into information seeking and non-information seeking questions. Furthermore, answers of adult caregivers were classified into explanatory and non-explanatory answers. The results show that children ask questions to receive information, and the percentage of explanatory questions increases as they grow older. Adult caregivers provide explanatory answers more often than non-explanatory answers. These results are similar to those obtained from children in the West, suggesting that Korean children use questions as a means of obtaining information, and asking questions is an efficient way of gaining information from adults who can be informants.