Views on the use of complaining act in children

The aim of this study is to determine the strategies used by the preschool children aged 5 to 6 years for the complaint acts and to determine the level of separation of the children with the adults in the choice of complaint strategies. The participants of the study, which were conducted in survey model, consisted of two different groups. The first group consists of 110 students in the 5-6 age range who are educated in preschool education institutions. The second group consisted of 110 adults who were included in the study to determine the strategies used to complain in Turkish language and Turkish culture. The data of the study was collected by using the Discourse Completion Test which consisted of twelve items. The items in the Discourse Completion Test for children were also adapted to adults. In this way, children and adults used complaint acts in contexts where the same discourse conditions were established. Data were collected through face-to-face interviews with children and through a written form with adults. In the analysis of the data, the responses of the children and adults were first evaluated by two experts and the strategy of the responses was determined. Then, frequency and ratio calculations of strategy choices of children and adults were made. The results showed that children apply to different complaint-taking strategies in the same context from adults. Keywords: Complaint, speech act, language acquisition, preschool students.